Pliny the Younger: EPISTVLARVM LIBRI DECEM

1 Terret me haec tua tam pertinax valetudo, et quamquam te temperantissimum noverim, vereor tamen ne quid illi etiam in mores tuos liceat. 2 Proinde moneo patienter resistas: hoc laudabile hoc salutare. Admittit humana natura quod suadeo.

1 This so pertinacious ill-health of yours frightens me, and although I know you to be most temperate, I nevertheless fear lest something be permitted to it even in respect to your habits. 2 Accordingly I advise that you resist patiently: this is laudable, this is salutary. Human nature admits what I urge.

3 Ipse certe sic agere sanus cum meis soleo: 'Spero quidem, si forte in adversam valetudinem incidero, nihil me desideraturum vel pudore vel paenitentia dignum; si tamen superaverit morbus, denuntio ne quid mihi detis, nisi permittentibus medicis, sciatisque si dederitis ita vindicaturum, ut solent alii quae negantur.' 4 Quin etiam cum perustus ardentissima febre, tandem remissus unctusque, acciperem a medico potionem, porrexi manum utque tangeret dixi, admotumque iam labris poculum reddidi. 5 Postea cum vicensimo valetudinis die balineo praepararer, mussantesque medicos repente vidissem, causam requisivi. Responderunt posse me tuto lavari, non tamen omnino sine aliqua suspicione.

3 I myself, certainly, am accustomed, while sane, to deal thus with my people: ‘I hope indeed, if by chance I fall into adverse health, that I shall desire nothing worthy of shame or of repentance; if, however, the disease should prevail, I give notice that you are to give me nothing unless the physicians permit, and know that, if you do give it, I will exact redress in the way others are wont for things that are refused.’ 4 Nay even, when I was scorched by a most burning fever, at length remitted and anointed, as I was receiving a potion from the physician, I stretched out my hand and told him to touch it, and the cup, now brought to my lips, I handed back. 5 Afterwards, when on the twentieth day of my illness I was being prepared for the bath, and I suddenly saw the physicians muttering, I asked the reason. They replied that I could bathe safely, yet not altogether without some suspicion.

6 'Quid' inquam 'necesse est?' atque ita spe balinei, cui iam videbar inferri, placide leniterque dimissa, ad abstinentiam rursus, non secus ac modo ad balineum, animum vultumque composui. 7 Quae tibi scripsi, primum ut te non sine exemplo monerem, deinde ut in posterum ipse ad eandem temperantiam astringerer, cum me hac epistula quasi pignore obligavissem. Vale.

6 'What,' I said, 'is necessary?' and so, with the hope of the bath, into which I already seemed to be being borne, placidly and gently dismissed, I composed my mind and countenance back to abstinence, just as a moment ago to the bath. 7 The things I have written to you, first so that I might admonish you not without an example, then that in the future I myself might be constrained to the same temperance, since by this letter I had, as it were, obligated myself as by a pledge. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS IUSTO SUO S.

GAIUS PLINY TO HIS JUSTUS, GREETINGS.

1 Quemadmodum congruit, ut simul et affirmes te assiduis occupationibus impediri, et scripta nostra desideres, quae vix ab otiosis impetrare aliquid perituri temporis possunt? 2 Patiar ergo aestatem inquietam vobis exercitamque transcurrere, et hieme demum, cum credibile erit noctibus saltem vacare te posse, quaeram quid potissimum ex nugis meis tibi exhibeam. 3 Interim abunde est si epistulae non sunt molestae; sunt autem et ideo breviores erunt.

1 How does it accord that you at once both affirm that you are hindered by assiduous occupations, and desire our writings, which can scarcely obtain from the leisured any amount of time about to perish? 2 I will therefore allow the summer, restless and overtaxed for you, to run its course, and in winter at last, when it will be credible that at least by nights you can be free, I will consider what, above all, from my trifles I should exhibit to you. 3 Meanwhile it is enough if letters are not bothersome; they are, however, and therefore they will be shorter.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS PRAESENTI SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS PRAESENS, GREETINGS.

1 Tantane perseverantia tu modo in Lucania, modo in Campania? 'Ipse enim' inquis 'Lucanus, uxor Campana.' 2 Iusta causa longioris absentiae, non perpetuae tamen. Quin ergo aliquando in urbem redis?

1 Is your perseverance really so great, now in Lucania, now in Campania? 'For I myself,' you say, 'am a Lucanian; my wife a Campanian.' 2 A just cause for a longer absence, yet not for a perpetual one. Why then do you not at some time return to the city?

ubi dignitas honor amicitiae tam superiores quam minores. Quousque regnabis? quousque vigilabis cum voles, dormies quamdiu voles?

where is the dignity, the honor, of friendship for superiors as well as inferiors? How long will you reign? how long will you keep vigil when you wish, will you sleep as long as you wish?

quousque calcei nusquam, toga feriata, liber totus dies? 3 Tempus est te revisere molestias nostras, vel ob hoc solum ne voluptates istae satietate languescant. Saluta paulisper, quo sit tibi iucundius salutari; terere in hac turba, ut te solitudo delectet.

how long will there be no shoes, the toga on holiday, the whole day free? 3 It is time for you to revisit our annoyances, even for this reason alone, lest those pleasures languish from satiety. Greet for a little while, so that it may be more pleasant for you to be greeted; wear yourself out in this crowd, so that solitude may delight you.

4 Sed quid imprudens quem evocare conor retardo? Fortasse enim his ipsis admoneris, ut te magis ac magis otio involvas; quod ego non abrumpi sed intermitti volo. 5 Ut enim, si cenam tibi facerem, dulcibus cibis acres acutosque miscerem, ut obtusus illis et oblitus stomachus his excitaretur, ita nunc hortor ut iucundissimum genus vitae non nullis interdum quasi acoribus condias.

4 But why, unwitting, do I delay the one whom I am trying to summon? For perhaps by these very things you are admonished to wrap yourself more and more in leisure; which I wish not to be broken off but to be intermitted. 5 For just as, if I were making you a dinner, I would mix with the sweet foods some keen and acute ones, so that a stomach dulled and forgetful by those might be excited by these, so now I exhort you to season the most pleasant kind of life with certain, from time to time, as it were, bitters.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS PONTIO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS PONTIUS, GREETINGS.

1 Ais legisse te hendecasyllabos meos; requiris etiam quemadmodum coeperim scribere, homo ut tibi videor severus, ut ipse fateor non ineptus. 2 Numquam a poetice — altius enim repetam — alienus fui; quin etiam quattuordecim natus annos Graecam tragoediam scripsi. 'Qualem?' inquis.

1 You say you have read my hendecasyllables; you also ask how I began to write, a man—as I seem to you—severe, and, as I myself confess, not inept. 2 I have never been alien from poetry—for I will go back further—indeed, at fourteen years of age I wrote a Greek tragedy. ‘What kind?’ you ask.

Nescio; tragoedia vocabatur. 3 Mox, cum e militia rediens in Icaria insula ventis detinerer, Latinos elegos in illud ipsum mare ipsamque insulam feci. Expertus sum me aliquando et heroo, hendecasyllabis nunc primum, quorum hic natalis haec causa est.

I do not know; it was called a tragedy. 3 Soon, when, returning from military service, I was detained by the winds on the island of Icaria, I made Latin elegies on that very sea and the island itself. I have tried myself at times also in heroic verse, and now for the first time in hendecasyllables, of which this is the birth and this is the cause.

Legebantur in Laurentino mihi libri Asini Galli de comparatione patris et Ciceronis. Incidit epigramma Ciceronis in Tironem suum. 4 Dein cum meridie — erat enim aestas — dormiturus me recepissem, nec obreperet somnus, coepi reputare maximos oratores hoc studii genus et in oblectationibus habuisse et in laude posuisse.

At my Laurentine estate, the books of Asinius Gallus On the Comparison of his Father and Cicero were being read to me. An epigram of Cicero upon his Tiro came up. 4 Then, when at midday — for it was summer — I had withdrawn to sleep, and sleep did not steal upon me, I began to reckon that the greatest orators both had this kind of study among their oblectations and had placed it among matters of praise.

5 Intendi animum contraque opinionem meam post longam desuetudinem perquam exiguo temporis momento id ipsum, quod me ad scribendum sollicitaverat, his versibus exaravi:

5 I applied my mind, and contrary to my expectation, after a long desuetude, in an exceedingly scant moment of time I wrote out that very thing which had solicited me to write, with these verses:

6 Cum libros Galli legerem, quibus ille parenti
ausus de Cicerone dare est palmamque decusque,
lascivum inveni lusum Ciceronis et illo
spectandum ingenio, quo seria condidit et quo
humanis salibus multo varioque lepore
magnorum ostendit mentes gaudere virorum.
Nam queritur quod fraude mala frustratus amantem
paucula cenato sibi debita savia Tiro
tempore nocturno subtraxerit. 5 His ego lectis
'cur post haec' inquam 'nostros celamus amores
nullumque in medium timidi damus atque fatemur
Tironisque dolos, Tironis nosse fugaces
blanditias et furta novas addentia flammas?'

6 When I was reading the books of Gallus, in which he
dared to award to his parent over Cicero the palm and the honor,
I found a wanton play of Cicero, and to be gazed at by that
talent with which he composed serious things, and with which
by human sallies and by much and various charm he showed
the minds of great men to rejoice.
For he complains that by wicked fraud Tiro, having cheated his lover,
withdrew by night a few kisses owed to him after dinner.
5 On reading these I said,
'why after this do we hide our loves, and timid give nothing into the open and confess
both the tricks of Tiro, that we know Tiro’s fleeting blandishments
and the thefts that add new flames?'

7 Transii ad elegos; hos quoque non minus celeriter explicui, addidi alios facilitate corruptus. Deinde in urbem reversus sodalibus legi; probaverunt. 8 Inde plura metra si quid otii, ac maxime in itinere temptavi.

7 I passed over to elegiacs; these too I unfolded no less swiftly, and, seduced by facility, I added others. Then, having returned to the city, I read to my sodales; they approved. 8 Thence I tried more meters, if there was any leisure, and especially on the journey.

Postremo placuit exemplo multorum unum separatim hendecasyllaborum volumen absolvere, nec paenitet. 9 Legitur describitur cantatur etiam, et a Graecis quoque, quos Latine huius libelli amor docuit, nunc cithara nunc lyra personatur. 10 Sed quid ego tam gloriose?

At last it pleased me, by the example of many, to complete one volume of hendecasyllables separately, and I do not regret it. 9 It is read, it is copied, it is even sung, and even by Greeks too, whom the love of this little booklet has taught Latin, now by cithara, now by lyre it is made to resound. 10 But why am I so vainglorious?

Quamquam poetis furere concessum est. Et tamen non de meo sed de aliorum iudicio loquor; qui sive iudicant sive errant, me delectat. Unum precor, ut posteri quoque aut errent similiter aut iudicent.

Although it is permitted to poets to rave. And yet I speak not of my own judgment but of the judgment of others; who, whether they judge or err, it delights me. One thing I pray: that posterity too may either err in like manner or judge.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS CALPURNIAE SUAE S.

C. PLINY TO HIS CALPURNIA, GREETINGS.

1 Incredibile est quanto desiderio tui tenear. In causa amor primum, deinde quod non consuevimus abesse. Inde est quod magnam noctium partem in imagine tua vigil exigo; inde quod interdiu, quibus horis te visere solebam, ad diaetam tuam ipsi me, ut verissime dicitur, pedes ducunt; quod denique aeger et maestus ac similis excluso a vacuo limine recedo.

1 It is incredible with how great a longing for you I am held. The cause is love first, then that we have not been accustomed to be apart. Hence it is that, wakeful, I spend a great part of the nights with your image before me; hence that in the daytime, at the hours at which I used to visit you, my very feet, as is most truly said, lead me to your chamber; and finally that I withdraw sick and sorrowful, and like one shut out, from an empty threshold.

Unum tempus his tormentis caret, quo in foro et Samicorum litibus conteror. 2 Aestima tu, quae vita mea sit, cui requies in labore, in miseria curisque solacium. Vale.

One time alone is free from these torments, when in the forum and by the lawsuits of the Samians I am worn down. 2 Appraise you, what my life is, for whom repose is in labor, and solace in misery and cares. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS MACRINO SUO S.

GAIUS PLINY TO HIS MACRINUS, GREETINGS.

1 Rara et notabilis res Vareno contigit, sit licet adhuc dubia. Bithyni accusationem eius ut temere incohatam omisisse narrantur. 'Narrantur' dico?

1 A rare and notable thing has befallen Varenus, although it is still doubtful. The Bithynians are reported to have dropped his accusation as rashly inchoated. 'Are they reported,' do I say?

Adest provinciae legatus, attulit decretum concilii ad Caesarem, attulit ad multos principes viros, attulit etiam ad nos Vareni advocatos. 2 Perstat tamen idem ille Magnus; quin etiam Nigrinum optimum virum pertinacissime exercet. Per hunc a consulibus postulabat, ut Varenus exhibere rationes cogeretur.

The legate of the province is present; he brought the decree of the council to Caesar, he brought it to many principal men, he brought it also to us, the advocates of Varenus. 2 Nevertheless that same Magnus persists; indeed he most pertinaciously harasses Nigrinus, an excellent man. Through him he was demanding from the consuls that Varenus be compelled to render accounts.

3 Assistebam Vareno iam tantum ut amicus et tacere decreveram. Nihil enim tam contrarium quam si advocatus a senatu datus defenderem ut reum, cui opus esset ne reus videretur. 4 Cum tamen finita postulatione Nigrini consules ad me oculos rettulissent, 'Scietis' inquam 'constare nobis silentii nostri rationem, cum veros legatos provinciae audieritis.' Contra Nigrinus: 'Ad quem missi sunt?' Ego: 'Ad me quoque: habeo decretum provinciae.' 5 Rursus ille: 'Potest tibi liquere.' Ad hoc ego: 'Si tibi ex diverso liquet, potest et mihi quod est melius liquere.Ì 6 Tum legatus Polyaenus causas abolitae accusationis exposuit, postulavitque ne cognitioni Caesaris praeiudicium fieret.

3 I stood by Varenus now only as a friend and had decided to be silent. For nothing would be so contrary as if, being an advocate assigned by the senate, I were to defend him as a defendant, when what was needed was that he not seem a defendant. 4 However, when, Nigrinus’s petition having ended, the consuls turned their eyes to me, I said, ‘You will know that we have a rationale for our silence, when you have heard the true legates of the province.’ Nigrinus, in reply: ‘To whom have they been sent?’ I: ‘To me as well: I have the decree of the province.’ 5 Again he: ‘It may be clear to you.’ To this I: ‘If, conversely, it is clear to you, it can be clear to me too, which is better.’Ì 6 Then the legate Polyaenus set forth the causes of the accusation’s being abolished, and requested that no prejudice be done to Caesar’s hearing.

Respondit Magnus iterumque Polyaenus. Ipse raro et breviter interlocutus multum me intra silentium tenui. 7 Accepi enim non minus interdum oratorium esse tacere quam dicere.

Magnus replied, and again Polyaenus. I myself, having interjected rarely and briefly, held myself much within silence. 7 For I have learned that to be silent is at times no less oratorical than to speak.

Atque adeo repeto me quibusdam capitis reis vel magis silentio quam oratione accuratissima profuisse. 8 Mater amisso filio — quid enim prohibet, quamquam alia ratio scribendae epistulae fuerit, de studiis disputare? — libertos eius eosdemque coheredes suos falsi et veneficii reos detulerat ad principem, iudicemque impetraverat Iulium Servianum.

And indeed I recall that I have benefited certain defendants in capital cases even more by silence than by the most meticulous oration. 8 A mother, her son having been lost — for what, after all, forbids, although there was another rationale for writing the letter, to dispute about studies? — had reported to the princeps his freedmen, the same also her coheirs, as defendants on a charge of forgery and venefice (poisoning), and had obtained Julius Servianus as judge.

9 Defenderam reos ingenti quidem coetu; erat enim causa notissima, praeterea utrimque ingenia clarissima. Finem cognitioni quaestio imposuit, quae secundum reos dedit. 10 Postea mater adiit principem, affirmavit se novas probationes invenisse.

9 I had defended the defendants before an immense concourse; for the case was very well known, and besides, on both sides the talents were most illustrious. The interrogation set an end to the hearing, which gave judgment in favor of the defendants. 10 Afterwards the mother approached the emperor, asserting that she had found new proofs.

Praeceptum est Suburano, ut vacaret finitam causam retractanti, si quid novi afferret. 11 Aderat matri Iulius Africanus, nepos illius oratoris, quo audito Passienus Crispus dixit: 'Bene mehercule, bene; sed quo tam bene?' Huius nepos, iuvenis ingeniosus sed non parum callidus, cum multa dixisset assignatumque tempus implesset, 'Rogo' inquit, 'Suburane, permittas mihi unum verbum adicere.' 12 Tum ego, cum omnes me ut diu responsurum intuerentur, 'Respondissem' inquam 'si unum illud verbum Africanus adiecisset, in quo non dubito omnia nova fuisse.' 13 Non facile me repeto tantum assensum agendo consecutum, quantum tunc non agendo.

It was directed to Suburanus that he should be available to one re-examining a concluded case, if he should bring anything new. 11 Julius Africanus was present at the mother’s side, the grandson of that orator; on hearing him, Passienus Crispus said: “Well, by Hercules, well; but to what end so well?” His grandson, a young man ingenious yet not a little crafty, after he had said many things and had filled the assigned time, said, “I ask, Suburanus, that you permit me to add one word.” 12 Then I, while all were looking at me as though I would respond at length, said: “I would have responded, if Africanus had added that one word, in which I do not doubt everything new was contained.” 13 I do not readily recall that I ever achieved as much assent by pleading as I did then by not pleading.

Similiter nunc et probatum et exceptum est, quod pro Vareno hactenus tacui. 14 Consules, ut Polyaenus postulabat, omnia integra principi servaverunt; cuius cognitionem suspensus exspecto. Nam dies ille nobis pro Vareno aut securitatem et otium dabit aut intermissum laborem renovata sollicitudine iniunget.

Similarly now both has been approved and received, that which on behalf of Varenus I have thus far kept silent. 14 The consuls, as Polyaenus was demanding, preserved everything intact for the emperor; whose hearing I await in suspense. For that day will give us, for Varenus, either security and leisure, or will enjoin the interrupted labor with solicitude renewed.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS SATURNINO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS SATURNINUS, GREETINGS.

1 Et proxime Prisco nostro et rursus, quia ita iussisti, gratias egi. Libentissime quidem: est enim mihi periucundum, quod viri optimi mihique amicissimi adeo cohaesistis, ut invicem vos obligari putetis. 2 Nam ille quoque praecipuam se voluptatem ex amicitia tua capere profitetur, certatque tecum honestissimo certamine mutuae caritatis, quam ipsum tempus augebit.

1 And most recently to our Priscus, and again—since you so ordered—I have given thanks. Most gladly indeed: for it is to me very-pleasant that you have so coalesced with a man most excellent and very dearest to me, that you think yourselves mutually obligated. 2 For he too professes that he takes a special pleasure from your friendship, and he vies with you in the most honorable contest of mutual charity, which time itself will increase.

Te negotiis distineri ob hoc moleste fero, quod deservire studiis non potes. Si tamen alteram litem per iudicem alteram — ut ais — ipse finieris, incipies primum istic otio frui, deinde satiatus ad nos reverti. Vale.

I am annoyed that you are detained by business on this account, that you cannot serve your studies. If, however, you settle one lawsuit through a judge and — as you say — the other yourself, you will begin first there to enjoy leisure, then, sated, to return to us. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS PRISCO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS PRISCUS, GREETINGS.

1 Exprimere non possum, quam iucundum sit mihi quod Saturninus noster summas tibi apud me gratias aliis super alias epistulis agit. 2 Perge ut coepisti, virumque optimum quam familiarissime dilige, magnam voluptatem ex amicitia eius percepturus nec ad breve tempus. 3 Nam cum omnibus virtutibus abundat, tum hac praecipue, quod habet maximam in amore constantiam.

1 I cannot express how delightful it is to me that our Saturninus pays you the highest thanks, letter upon letter, in my presence. 2 Continue as you have begun, and love that most excellent man as intimately as possible, for you will reap great pleasure from his friendship, and not for a short time. 3 For while he abounds in all virtues, yet especially in this one: that he has the greatest constancy in affection.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS FUSCO SUO S.

GAIUS PLINY TO HIS FUSCUS, GREETINGS.

1 Quaeris quemadmodum in secessu, quo iam diu frueris, putem te studere oportere. 2 Utile in primis, et multi praecipiunt, vel ex Graeco in Latinum vel ex Latino vertere in Graecum. Quo genere exercitationis proprietas splendorque verborum, copia figurarum, vis explicandi, praeterea imitatione optimorum similia inveniendi facultas paratur; simul quae legentem fefellissent, transferentem fugere non possunt.

1 You ask how, in retirement, which you have now long been enjoying, I think you ought to study. 2 Useful above all, and many prescribe it, is to translate either from Greek into Latin or from Latin into Greek. By this kind of exercise, precision and splendor of words, a wealth of figures, the power of explication, and, moreover, by imitation of the best, the capacity for discovering things similar are furnished; at the same time, those things which would have escaped a reader cannot escape a translator.

3 Intellegentia ex hoc et iudicium acquiritur. Nihil offuerit quae legeris hactenus, ut rem argumentumque teneas, quasi aemulum scribere lectisque conferre, ac sedulo pensitare, quid tu quid ille commodius. Magna gratulatio si non nulla tu, magnus pudor si cuncta ille melius.

3 From this intelligence and judgment are acquired. It will do no harm to take what you have read thus far—so that you may hold the matter and the argument—to write as though a rival and to compare with what has been read, and to weigh sedulously what you, what he, do more advantageously. Great congratulation if you in some points are better; great shame if he is better in all.

Licebit interdum et notissima eligere et certare cum electis. 4 Audax haec, non tamen improba, quia secreta contentio: quamquam multos videmus eius modi certamina sibi cum multa laude sumpsisse, quosque subsequi satis habebant, dum non desperant, antecessisse. 5 Poteris et quae dixeris post oblivionem retractare, multa retinere plura transire, alia interscribere alia rescribere.

It will be allowable at times also to choose the most well-known and to contend with the elect. 4 Audacious is this, yet not improper, because it is a secret contention: although we see many have undertaken contests of this kind for themselves with much praise, and to have outstripped those whom they were content to follow, so long as they do not despair. 5 You will also be able to reconsider what you have said after oblivion, to retain many things, to let more pass, to annotate some and to rewrite others.

6 Laboriosum istud et taedio plenum, sed difficultate ipsa fructuosum, recalescere ex integro et resumere impetum fractum omissumque, postremo nova velut membra peracto corpori intexere nec tamen priora turbare. 7 Scio nunc tibi esse praecipuum studium orandi; sed non ideo semper pugnacem hunc et quasi bellatorium stilum suaserim. Ut enim terrae variis mutatisque seminibus, ita ingenia nostra nunc hac nunc illa meditatione recoluntur.

6 That is laborious and full of tedium, but by the very difficulty fruitful: to grow warm again afresh and to resume the impetus that was broken and omitted, and finally to weave, as if new limbs, into the completed body and yet not to disturb the former. 7 I know that your chief study now is pleading; but not for that reason would I always have advised this pugnacious and, as it were, bellicose style. For just as lands are re-cultivated by various and changed seeds, so our talents are refreshed now by this, now by that meditation.

8 Volo interdum aliquem ex historia locum apprendas, volo epistulam diligentius scribas. Nam saepe in oratione quoque non historica modo sed prope poetica descriptionum necessitas incidit, et pressus sermo purusque ex epistulis petitur. 9 Fas est et carmine remitti, non dico continuo et longo — id enim perfici nisi in otio non potest -, sed hoc arguto et brevi, quod apte quantas libet occupationes curasque distinguit.

8 I want you sometimes to take up some passage from history, I want you to write a letter more carefully. For often in oration too, not historical only but almost poetic, the necessity of descriptions occurs, and compressed and pure speech is sought from epistles. 9 It is permissible also to relax in verse—I do not say in a continuous and long one — for that cannot be accomplished except in leisure -, but in this pointed and brief one, which aptly marks off whatever occupations and cares you please.

10 Lusus vocantur; sed hi lusus non minorem interdum gloriam quam seria consequuntur. Atque adeo — cur enim te ad versus non versibus adhorter? —

10 They are called games; yet these games sometimes attain no less glory than serious works. And indeed — for why should I not exhort you to verses with verses? —

11 ut laus est cerae, mollis cedensque sequatur
si doctos digitos iussaque fiat opus
et nunc informet Martem castamve Minervam,
nunc Venerem effingat, nunc Veneris puerum;
utque sacri fontes non sola incendia sistunt,
saepe etiam flores vernaque prata iuvant,
sic hominum ingenium flecti ducique per artes
non rigidas docta mobilitate decet.

11 just as praise is due to wax, soft and yielding, if it follow
skilled fingers and the work be made as bidden,
and now it shapes Mars or chaste Minerva,
now it fashions Venus, now the boy of Venus;
and as sacred fountains do not only stay conflagrations,
often too flowers and vernal meadows give aid,
so it befits the ingenuity of men to be flexed and led by arts
not rigid, with learned mobility.

12 Itaque summi oratores, summi etiam viri sic se aut exercebant aut delectabant, immo delectabant exercebantque. 13 Nam mirum est ut his opusculis animus intendatur remittatur. Recipiunt enim amores odia iras misericordiam urbanitatem, omnia denique quae in vita atque etiam in foro causisque versantur.

12 And so the highest orators, and the greatest men too, thus either exercised themselves or took delight, nay rather, they took delight and exercised themselves as well. 13 For it is marvelous how by these opuscules the mind is both strained and relaxed. For they take in loves, hatreds, angers, mercy, urbanity—in short, all the things which are dealt with in life and even in the forum and in causes.

14 Inest his quoque eadem quae aliis carminibus utilitas, quod metri necessitate devincti soluta oratione laetamur, et quod facilius esse comparatio ostendit, libentius scribimus.

14 In these, too, there is the same utility as in other poems, because, bound by the necessity of meter, we take delight in loosened oration (prose), and because comparison shows it to be easier, we write more willingly.

15 Habes plura etiam fortasse quam requirebas; unum tamen omisi. Non enim dixi quae legenda arbitrarer: quamquam dixi, cum dicerem quae scribenda. Tu memineris sui cuiusque generis auctores diligenter eligere.

15 You have perhaps even more than you were asking for; yet I omitted one thing. For I did not say what I would judge should be read—although I did say so when I was saying what should be written. Do you, however, remember to choose carefully the authors of each respective kind.

Aiunt enim multum legendum esse, non multa. 16 Qui sint hi adeo notum probatumque est, ut demonstratione non egeat; et alioqui tam immodice epistulam extendi, ut dum tibi quemadmodum studere debeas suadeo, studendi tempus abstulerim. Quin ergo pugillares resumis, et aliquid ex his vel istud ipsum quod coeperas scribis?

For they say that one must read much, not many things. 16 Who these are is so well known and approved that it needs no demonstration; and otherwise I have so immoderately extended the epistle that, while I am urging you how you ought to study, I have taken away the time for studying. Why then do you not resume your writing-tablets, and write something from these, or that very thing which you had begun?

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS MACRINO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS MACRINUS, GREETINGS.

1 Quia ipse, cum prima cognovi, iungere extrema quas avulsa cupio, te quoque existimo velle de Vareno et Bithynis reliqua cognoscere. Acta causa hinc a Polyaeno, inde a Magno. 2 Finitis actionibus Caesar 'Neutra' inquit 'pars de mora queretur; erit mihi curae explorare provinciae voluntatem.' 3 Multum interim Varenus tulit.

1 Since I myself, when I learned the first things, want to join on the conclusions, which I long for as torn off, I suppose you too wish to learn the remaining matters about Varenus and the Bithynians. The case was conducted on one side by Polyaenus, on the other by Magnus. 2 When the pleadings were finished, Caesar said, 'Neither party will complain about delay; it will be my care to explore the province’s will.' 3 Meanwhile Varenus endured much.

Etenim quam dubium est an merito accusetur, qui an omnino accusetur incertum est! Superest ne rursus provinciae quod damnasse dicitur placeat, agatque paenitentiam paenitentiae suae. Vale.

For indeed how doubtful it is whether he is justly accused, when it is uncertain whether he is accused at all! It remains whether the province may again be pleased with what it is said to have condemned, and do penance for its penance. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS FABATO PROSOCERO SUO S.

Gaius Pliny to Fabatus, his grandfather-in-law, greetings.

1 Miraris quod Hermes libertus meus hereditarios agros, quos ego iusseram proscribi, non exspectata auctione pro meo quincunce ex septingentis milibus Corelliae addixerit. Adicis hos nongentis milibus posse venire, ac tanto magis quaeris, an quod gessit ratum servem. 2 Ego vero servo: quibus ex causis, accipe.

1 You marvel that Hermes, my freedman, without the auction being awaited, has adjudged to Corellia, for my five‑twelfths, the hereditary fields which I had ordered to be posted for sale, at 700,000. You add that these could fetch 900,000, and all the more you ask whether I should hold as ratified what he has transacted. 2 I indeed do hold it: for what causes, hear.

Cupio enim et tibi probatum et coheredibus meis excusatum esse, quod me ab illis maiore officio iubente secerno. 3 Corelliam cum summa reverentia diligo, primum ut sororem Corelli Rufi, cuius mihi memoria sacrosancta est, deinde ut matri meae familiarissimam. 4 Sunt mihi et cum marito eius Minicio Iusto, optimo viro, vetera iura; fuerunt et cum filio maxima, adeo quidem ut praetore me ludis meis praesederit.

For I wish both that it be approved by you and excused to my coheirs, that I set myself apart from them, a greater duty bidding me. 3 I cherish Corellia with the utmost reverence, first as the sister of Corellius Rufus, whose memory is to me sacrosanct, then as most intimate to my mother. 4 I have, too, long-standing bonds with her husband Minicius Iustus, an excellent man; and I had the greatest with her son, indeed to such a degree that, I being praetor, he presided over my games.

5 Haec, cum proxime istic fui, indicavit mihi cupere se aliquid circa Larium nostrum possidere. Ego illi ex praediis meis quod vellet et quanti vellet obtuli exceptis maternis paternisque; his enim cedere ne Corelliae quidem possum. 6 Igitur cum obvenisset mihi hereditas in qua praedia ista, scripsi ei venalia futura.

5 When I was most recently there, she indicated to me that she desired to possess something around our Larius. I offered her, from my estates, whatever she wished and at whatever price she wished, except the maternal and paternal [properties]; for to these I cannot yield, not even to Corellia. 6 Therefore, when an inheritance had fallen to me in which those estates were, I wrote to her that they would be for sale.

Has epistulas Hermes tulit exigentique, ut statim portionem meam sibi addiceret, paruit. Vides quam ratum habere debeam, quod libertus meus meis moribus gessit. 7 Superest ut coheredes aequo animo ferant separatim me vendidisse, quod mihi licuit omnino non vendere.

Hermes carried these letters, and he obeyed the one demanding that he immediately adjudge my portion to himself. You see how I ought to hold ratified what my freedman has done in accordance with my manners. 7 What remains is that the coheirs bear with equanimity that I have sold separately what it was permitted me not to sell at all.

8 Nec vero coguntur imitari meum exemplum: non enim illis eadem cum Corellia iura. Possunt ergo intueri utilitatem suam, pro qua mihi fuit amicitia. Vale.

8 Nor indeed are they compelled to imitate my example: for they do not have the same rights with Corellia. They can therefore look to their own utility, whereas for me it was friendship. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS MINICIO SUO S.

GAIUS PLINY TO HIS MINICIUS, GREETINGS.

1 Libellum formatum a me, sicut exegeras, quo amicus tuus, immo noster — quid enim non commune nobis? -, si res posceret uteretur, misi tibi ideo tardius ne tempus emendandi eum, id est disperdendi, haberes. 2 Habebis tamen, an emendandi nescio, utique disperdendi.

1 A booklet formatted by me, just as you had required, which your friend, nay rather ours — for what indeed is not common to us? -, if the matter demanded, might use, I sent to you the more tardily for this reason, lest you have time for emending it, that is, for destroying it. 2 You will have it, however, whether for emending I do not know, at any rate for destroying.

Ὑμεῖς γὰρ οἱ εὔζηλοι optima quaeque detrahitis. 3 Quod si feceris, boni consulam. Postea enim illis ex aliqua occasione ut meis utar, et beneficio fastidi tui ipse laudabor, ut in eo quod adnotatum invenies et suprascripto aliter explicitum.

For you who are well‑zealous detract the very best things. 3 But if you do this, I shall take it in good part. For afterwards, on some occasion, I shall use them as my own, and by the benefit of your fastidiousness I myself shall be praised, as in that which you will find annotated and set out otherwise than in the superscription.

4 Nam cum suspicarer futurum, ut tibi tumidius videretur, quoniam est sonantius et elatius, non alienum existimavi, ne te torqueres, addere statim pressius quiddam et exilius, vel potius humilius et peius, vestro tamen iudicio rectius. 5 Cur enim non usquequaque tenuitatem vestram insequar et exagitem? Haec ut inter istas occupationes aliquid aliquando rideres, illud serio: 6 vide ut mihi viaticum reddas, quod impendi data opera cursore dimisso.

4 For since I suspected it would come to pass that it would seem to you rather swollen, since it is more sonorous and loftier, I did not think it out of place, lest you be tormented, to add at once something more compressed and thinner—or rather humbler and worse—yet, in your judgment, more correct. 5 For why should I not everywhere pursue and harry your tenuity? These things so that, amid those occupations, you might laugh at something now and then; this in earnest: 6 see that you pay me back the travel-money, which I spent on purpose, the courier having been dispatched.

Ne tu, cum hoc legeris, non partes libelli, sed totum libellum improbabis, negabisque ullius pretii esse, cuius pretium reposcaris. Vale.

Indeed you, when you have read this, will disapprove not parts of the little book, but the whole little book, and you will deny it to be of any price, the price of which you are being asked to repay. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS FEROCI SUO S.

GAIUS PLINY TO HIS FEROX, GREETINGS.

1 Eadem epistula et non studere te et studere significat. Aenigmata loquor? Ita plane, donec distinctius quod sentio enuntiem.

1 The same letter signifies both that you are not studying and that you are studying. Am I speaking enigmas? Yes, plainly, until I enunciate more distinctly what I perceive.

2 Negat enim te studere, sed est tam polita quam nisi a studente non potest scribi; aut es tu super omnes beatus, si talia per desidiam et otium perficis. Vale.

2 For it says you are not studying, yet it is so polished that it cannot be written except by someone studying; or you are blessed above all, if you perfect such things through idleness and leisure. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS CORELLIAE SUAE S.

C. PLINY TO HIS CORELLIA, GREETING.

1 Tu quidem honestissime, quod tam impense et rogas et exigis, ut accipi iubeam a te pretium agrorum non e septingentis milibus, quanti illos a liberto meo, sed ex nongentis, quanti a publicanis partem vicensimam emisti. 2 Invicem ego et rogo et exigo, ut non solum quid te verum etiam quid me deceat aspicias, patiarisque me in hoc uno tibi eodem animo repugnare, quo in omnibus obsequi soleo. Vale.

1 You indeed most honorably, in that you so earnestly both ask and demand, that I should order the price of the fields to be accepted from you not at seven hundred thousand, the sum for which you purchased them from my freedman, but at nine hundred thousand, the sum for which you bought the twentieth-part from the publicans. 2 In turn I both ask and demand that you look to not only what befits you but also what befits me, and that you allow me in this one matter to oppose you with the same spirit with which I am accustomed to comply with you in all things. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS SATURNINO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS SATURNINUS, GREETINGS.

1 Requiris quid agam. Quae nosti: distringor officio, amicis deservio, studeo interdum, quod non interdum sed solum semperque facere, non audeo dicere rectius, certe beatius erat. 2 Te omnia alia quam quae velis agere moleste ferrem, nisi ea quae agis essent honestissima.

1 You ask what I am doing. The things you know: I am constrained by duty, I devotedly serve my friends, I study sometimes—which, to do not sometimes but solely and always, I do not dare to say would be more right, certainly it would be happier. 2 I would take it hard that you do anything other than what you wish to do, were it not that the things you do are most honorable.

Nam et rei publicae suae negotia curare et disceptare inter amicos laude dignissimum est. 3 Prisci nostri contubernium iucundum tibi futurum sciebam. Noveram simplicitatem eius, noveram comitatem; eundem esse — quod minus noram — gratissimum experior, cum tam iucunde officiorum nostrorum meminisse eum scribas.

For both to care for the affairs of one’s own republic and to adjudicate among friends is most worthy of praise. 3 I knew that the companionship of our Priscus would be pleasant for you. I had known his simplicity, I had known his comity; I find that the same man is—what I had less known—most agreeable, since you write that he has so pleasantly remembered our duties.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS FABATO PROSOCERO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO FABATUS, HIS GRANDFATHER-IN-LAW, GREETINGS.

1 Calestrium Tironem familiarissime diligo et privatis mihi et publicis necessitudinibus implicitum. 2 Simul militavimus, simul quaestores Caesaris fuimus. Ille me in tribunatu liberorum iure praecessit, ego illum in praetura sum consecutus, cum mihi Caesar annum remisisset.

1 I cherish Calestrius Tiro most intimately and find him bound up with me in both private and public ties. 2 Together we served in the army, together we were quaestors to Caesar. He got ahead of me in the tribunate by the right of children, I caught up with him in the praetorship, when Caesar remitted a year to me.

Ego in villas eius saepe secessi, ille in domo mea saepe convaluit. 3 Hic nunc pro consule provinciam Baeticam per Ticinum est petiturus. 4 Spero, immo confido facile me impetraturum, ex itinere deflectat ad te, si voles vindicta liberare, quos proxime inter amicos manumisisti.

I have often withdrawn to his villas, he has often recovered in my house. 3 He is now, as proconsul, about to proceed to the province Baetica by way of Ticinum. 4 I hope, nay rather I trust, that I shall easily obtain that he turn aside from his journey to you, if you wish to free by the vindicta those whom you lately manumitted among your friends.

Nihil est quod verearis ne sit hoc illi molestum, cui orbem terrarum circumire non erit longum mea causa. 5 Proinde nimiam istam verecundiam pone, teque quid velis consule. Illi tam iucundum quod ego, quam mihi quod tu iubes.

There is nothing for you to fear lest this be troublesome to him, for whom to go around the orb of the lands on my account will not be long. 5 Therefore set aside that excessive modesty, and consult yourself as to what you wish. To him, what I [request] is as pleasant as to me what you command.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS CELERI SUO S.

G. PLINY TO HIS CELER, GREETINGS.

1 Sua cuique ratio recitandi; mihi quod saepe iam dixi, ut si quid me fugit — ut certe fugit — admonear. 2 Quo magis miror, quod scribis fuisse quosdam qui reprehenderent quod orationes omnino recitarem; nisi vero has solas non putant emendandas. 3 A quibus libenter requisierim, cur concedant — si concedunt tamen — historiam debere recitari, quae non ostentationi sed fidei veritatique componitur; cur tragoediam, quae non auditorium sed scaenam et actores; cur lyrica, quae non lectorem sed chorum et lyram poscunt.

1 Each person has his own method of reciting; mine—as I have often already said—is that, if anything escapes me—as surely it does—I may be reminded. 2 All the more I marvel at what you write, that there were some who criticized my reciting orations at all; unless indeed they think these alone are not to be emended. 3 From them I would gladly inquire why they concede—if, that is, they do concede—that history ought to be recited, which is composed not for ostentation but for fidelity and truth; why tragedy, which demands not an auditorium but a stage and actors; why lyrics, which demand not a reader but a chorus and a lyre.

At horum recitatio usu iam recepta est. 4 Num ergo culpandus est ille qui coepit? Quamquam orationes quoque et nostri quidam et Graeci lectitaverunt.

But the recitation of these has now been received by usage. 4 Therefore, is he to be blamed who began it? Although orations too both some of our own and the Greeks have read repeatedly.

5 Supervacuum tamen est recitare quae dixeris. Etiam, si eadem omnia, si isdem omnibus, si statim recites; si vero multa inseras multa commutes, si quosdam novos quosdam eosdem sed post tempus assumas, cur minus probabilis sit causa recitandi quae dixeris quam edendi? 6 Sed difficile est ut oratio dum recitatur satisfaciat.

5 Nevertheless it is superfluous to recite what you have said. Even if you recite all the same things, to the same people, immediately; but if indeed you insert many things and change many things; if you take on some new hearers, some the same but after a lapse of time, why should the case for reciting what you have said be less probable than that for publishing? 6 But it is difficult for a speech to give satisfaction while it is being recited.

Iam hoc ad laborem recitantis pertinet, non ad rationem non recitandi. 7 Nec vero ego dum recito laudari, sed dum legor cupio. Itaque nullum emendandi genus omitto.

Now this pertains to the labor of the reciter, not to the rationale for not reciting. 7 Nor indeed do I desire to be praised while I recite, but while I am read. And so I omit no kind of emendation.

Ac primum quae scripsi mecum ipse pertracto; deinde duobus aut tribus lego; mox aliis trado adnotanda, notasque eorum, si dubito, cum uno rursus aut altero pensito; novissime pluribus recito, ac si quid mihi credis tunc acerrime emendo; 8 nam tanto diligentius quanto sollicitius intendo. Optime autem reverentia pudor metus iudicant, idque adeo sic habe: Nonne si locuturus es cum aliquo quamlibet docto, uno tamen, minus commoveris quam si cum multis vel indoctis? 9 Nonne cum surgis ad agendum, tunc maxime tibi ipse diffidis, tunc commutata non dico plurima sed omnia cupis?

And first I thoroughly go over with myself the things I have written; then I read to two or three; soon I hand them over to others to be annotated, and I weigh their notes again, if I am in doubt, with one or another; last of all I recite to more, and—if you credit me—then I amend most sharply; 8 for I apply myself the more diligently the more anxiously. Moreover, reverence, modesty, fear judge best, and hold this accordingly: Is it not so that if you are going to speak with someone, however learned, yet one only, you are less moved than if with many, even the unlearned? 9 Is it not so that when you rise to speak, then most of all you distrust yourself, then you desire changes—I do not say very many, but all?

utique si latior scaena et corona diffusior; nam illos quoque sordidos pullatosque reveremur. 10 Nonne si prima quaeque improbari putas, debilitaris et concidis? Opinor, quia in numero ipso est quoddam magnum collatumque consilium, quibusque singulis iudicii parum, omnibus plurimum.

especially if the stage is broader and the circle more diffuse; for we even revere those sordid and clad in mourning. 10 Do you not, if you think that every first thing is being disapproved, become debilitated and collapse? I opine, because in the very number there is a certain great and collated counsel, and to each individual there is too little of judgment, to all there is very much.

11 Itaque Pomponius Secundus — hic scriptor tragoediarum -, si quid forte familiarior amicus tollendum, ipse retinendum arbitraretur, dicere solebat: 'Ad populum provoco', atque ita ex populi vel silentio vel assensu aut suam aut amici sententiam sequebatur. 12 Tantum ille populo dabat; recte an secus, nihil ad me. Ego enim non populum advocare sed certos electosque soleo, quos intuear quibus credam, quos denique et tamquam singulos observem et tamquam non singulos timeam. 13 Nam, quod M. Cicero de stilo, ego de metu sentio: timor est, timor emendator asperrimus.

11 And so Pomponius Secundus — this writer of tragedies -, if by chance a more familiar friend judged that something ought to be removed, while he himself judged it ought to be retained, used to say: “I appeal to the people,” and thus from the people’s either silence or assent he would follow either his own or his friend’s opinion. 12 So much did he grant to the people; whether rightly or wrongly, that is nothing to me. For I am accustomed not to summon the people but certain chosen men, whom I look to, in whom I trust, whom finally I both observe as individuals and fear as though not individuals. 13 For what M. Cicero feels about the stylus, I feel about fear: fear is—fear the most severe emender.

Hoc ipsum quod nos recitaturos cogitamus emendat; quod auditorium ingredimur emendat; quod pallemus horrescimus circumspicimus emendat. 14 Proinde non paenitet me consuetudinis meae quam utilissimam experior, adeoque non deterreor sermunculis istorum, ut ultro te rogem monstres aliquid quod his addam. 15 Nihil enim curae meae satis est.

This very fact that we think we are about to recite corrects us; that we enter the auditorium corrects us; that we grow pale, shudder, and look around corrects us. 14 Therefore I do not repent of my custom, which I find most useful, and I am so far from being deterred by the little gossip of those people that I even of my own accord ask you to point out something which I may add to these. 15 For nothing is enough for my solicitude.

Cogito quam sit magnum dare aliquid in manus hominum, nec persuadere mihi possum non et cum multis et saepe tractandum, quod placere et semper et omnibus cupias. Vale.

I consider how great a thing it is to give something into the hands of men, nor can I persuade myself that what you desire to please always and everyone ought not also to be handled both with many and often. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS CANINIO SUO S.

GAIUS PLINY TO HIS CANINIUS, GREETINGS.

1 Deliberas mecum quemadmodum pecunia, quam municipibus nostris in epulum obtulisti, post te quoque salva sit. Honesta consultatio, non expedita sententia. Numeres rei publicae summam: verendum est ne dilabatur.

1 You are deliberating with me how the money, which you offered to our fellow townsmen for a banquet, may be kept safe even after you. An honorable consultation, not an easy resolution. You might count out the sum to the commonwealth: it is to be feared lest it slip away.

Des agros: ut publici neglegentur. 2 Equidem nihil commodius invenio, quam quod ipse feci. Nam pro quingentis milibus nummum, quae in alimenta ingenuorum ingenuarumque promiseram, agrum ex meis longe pluris actori publico mancipavi; eundem vectigali imposito recepi, tricena milia annua daturus.

Give fields: with the result that the public ones will be neglected. 2 For my part, I find nothing more expedient than what I myself did. For, in place of 500,000 in coin, which I had promised for the nourishment of freeborn boys and girls, I conveyed (by mancipation) to the public agent a field from my own estate worth far more; the same I received back with a ground-rent imposed, agreeing to pay 30,000 yearly.

3 Per hoc enim et rei publicae sors in tuto nec reditus incertus, et ager ipse propter id quod vectigal large supercurrit, semper dominum a quo exerceatur inveniet. 4 Nec ignoro me plus aliquanto quam donasse videor erogavisse, cum pulcherrimi agri pretium necessitas vectigalis infregerit. 5 Sed oportet privatis utilitatibus publicas, mortalibus aeternas anteferre, multoque diligentius muneri suo consulere quam facultatibus.

3 By this arrangement, the capital of the commonwealth is in safety and the return not uncertain, and the field itself, because the ground-rent amply overflows, will always find an owner by whom it may be worked. 4 Nor am I unaware that I have disbursed somewhat more than I seem to have donated, since the necessity of the ground-rent has broken the price of a most beautiful field. 5 But one ought to prefer public advantages to private, eternal to mortal, and to consult far more diligently for one’s office (munus) than for one’s resources.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS PRISCO SUO S.

Gaius Pliny to his Priscus, greetings.

1 Angit me Fanniae valetudo. Contraxit hanc dum assidet Iuniae virgini, sponte primum — est enim affinis -, deinde etiam ex auctoritate pontificum. 2 Nam virgines, cum vi morbi atrio Vestae coguntur excedere, matronarum curae custodiaeque mandantur.

1 Fannia’s health distresses me. She contracted this while she attended Junia the virgin, at first of her own accord — for she is a relative by affinity -, then also by the authority of the pontiffs. 2 For the virgins, when by the force of illness they are compelled to depart from the Atrium of Vesta, are entrusted to the care and custody of matrons.

Quo munere Fannia dum sedulo fungitur, hoc discrimine implicita est. 3 Insident febres, tussis increscit; summa macies summa defectio. Animus tantum et spiritus viget Helvidio marito, Thrasea patre dignissimus; reliqua labuntur, meque non metu tantum, verum etiam dolore conficiunt.

While Fannia, as she sedulously discharges this duty, has been entangled in this crisis. 3 Fevers sit upon her, the cough increases; extreme emaciation, extreme prostration. Only her courage and spirit are vigorous—most worthy of Helvidius her husband, and of Thrasea her father; the rest are slipping away, and they wear me down not only with fear but also with grief.

4 Doleo enim feminam maximam eripi oculis civitatis, nescio an aliquid simile visuris. Quae castitas illi, quae sanctitas, quanta gravitas quanta constantia! Bis maritum secuta in exsilium est, tertio ipsa propter maritum relegata.

4 For I grieve that a very great woman is being snatched from the eyes of the state; I do not know whether they will ever see anything similar. What chastity in her, what sanctity, how great gravity, how great constancy! Twice she followed her husband into exile; a third time she herself was relegated on account of her husband.

5 Nam cum Senecio reus esset quod de vita Helvidi libros composuisset rogatumque se a Fannia in defensione dixisset, quaerente minaciter Mettio Caro, an rogasset respondit: 'Rogavi'; an commentarios scripturo dedisset: 'Dedi'; an sciente matre: 'Nesciente'; postremo nullam vocem cedentem periculo emisit. 6 Quin etiam illos ipsos libros, quamquam ex necessitate et metu temporum abolitos senatus consulto, publicatis bonis servavit habuit, tulitque in exsilium exsili causam. 7 Eadem quam iucunda quam comis, quam denique — quod paucis datum est — non minus amabilis quam veneranda!

5 For when Senecio was defendant because he had composed books about the life of Helvidius and had said in his defense that he had been asked by Fannia, as Mettius Carus, menacingly inquiring, asked whether she had asked, she replied: 'I asked'; whether she had given the commentaries to him who was to write: 'I gave'; whether with her mother knowing: 'Not knowing'; and finally she uttered no word yielding to peril. 6 Nay even those very books, although by a senatorial decree abolished out of the necessity and fear of the times, with her goods confiscated she preserved and kept, and she even carried into exile the cause of her exile. 7 The same woman—how pleasant, how courteous, and finally—what is granted to few—no less lovable than venerable!

Eritne quam postea uxoribus nostris ostentare possimus? Erit a qua viri quoque fortitudinis exempla sumamus, quam sic cernentes audientesque miremur, ut illas quae leguntur? 8 Ac mihi domus ipsa nutare, convulsaque sedibus suis ruitura supra videtur, licet adhuc posteros habeat.

Will there be any whom afterward we can display to our wives? Will there be one from whom men also may take examples of fortitude, whom, seeing and hearing thus, we may admire as those who are read? 8 And to me the house itself seems to sway, and, wrenched from its own foundations, to be about to collapse upon us, although it still has posterity.

Quantis enim virtutibus quantisque factis assequentur, ut haec non novissima occiderit? 9 Me quidem illud etiam affligit et torquet, quod matrem eius, illam — nihil possum illustrius dicere — tantae feminae matrem, rursus videor amittere, quam haec, ut reddit ac refert nobis, sic auferet secum, meque et novo pariter et rescisso vulnere afficiet. 10 Utramque colui utramque dilexi: utram magis nescio, nec discerni volebant.

For by how great virtues and by how many deeds will they attain, so that this woman may not have died the latest? 9 Indeed, this too afflicts and torments me: that I seem again to be losing her mother—that woman, I can say nothing more illustrious—the mother of so great a woman; whom this one, just as she gives and restores her to us, so will carry off with her, and will smite me with a wound both new and reopened alike. 10 I honored both, I loved both: which one more I do not know, nor were they willing to be distinguished.

Habuerunt officia mea in secundis, habuerunt in adversis. Ego solacium relegatarum, ego ultor reversarum; non feci tamen paria atque eo magis hanc cupio servari, ut mihi solvendi tempora supersint. 11 In his eram curis, cum scriberem ad te; quas si deus aliquis in gaudium verterit, de metu non querar.

They had my services in prosperity; they had them in adversity. I, the solace of the relegated, I, the avenger of the returned; I have not, however, made things equal, and all the more I desire that she be preserved, so that time for discharging my debt may remain to me. 11 In these cares I was, when I was writing to you; which, if some god shall turn into joy, I will not complain of the fear.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS TACITO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS TACITUS, GREETING.

1 Librum tuum legi et, quam diligentissime potui, adnotavi quae commutanda, quae eximenda arbitrarer. Nam et ego verum dicere assuevi, et tu libenter audire. Neque enim ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam qui maxime laudari merentur.

1 I have read your book and, as diligently as I could, I annotated what I judged ought to be altered, and what to be excised. For I too have been accustomed to speak the truth, and you to hear it gladly. For indeed none are more patiently reprehended than those who most deserve to be praised.

2 Nunc a te librum meum cum adnotationibus tuis exspecto. O iucundas, o pulchras vices! Quam me delectat quod, si qua posteris cura nostri, usquequaque narrabitur, qua concordia simplicitate fide vixerimus!

2 Now I await from you my book with your annotations. O delightful, O beautiful exchanges! How it delights me that, if there is any concern for us among posterity, everywhere it will be told with what concord, simplicity, and faith we have lived!

3 Erit rarum et insigne, duos homines aetate dignitate propemodum aequales, non nullius in litteris nominis — cogor enim de te quoque parcius dicere, quia de me simul dico -, alterum alterius studia fovisse. 4 Equidem adulescentulus, cum iam tu fama gloriaque floreres, te sequi, tibi 'longo sed proximus intervallo' et esse et haberi concupiscebam. Et erant multa clarissima ingenia; sed tu mihi — ita similitudo naturae ferebat — maxime imitabilis, maxime imitandus videbaris.

3 It will be rare and noteworthy, that two men nearly equal in age and dignity, of no undistinguished name in letters — for I am compelled to speak more sparingly of you as well, because I speak of myself at the same time — have fostered each other’s studies. 4 Indeed, as an adolescent, when already you were flourishing in fame and glory, I was eager to follow you, to be, and to be considered, next to you “at a long yet nearest interval.” And there were many most illustrious talents; but you — so the likeness of nature inclined — seemed to me most imitable, most to be imitated.

5 Quo magis gaudeo, quod si quis de studiis sermo, una nominamur, quod de te loquentibus statim occurro. Nec desunt qui utrique nostrum praeferantur. 6 Sed nos, nihil interest mea quo loco, iungimur; nam mihi primus, qui a te proximus.

5 The more I rejoice, because if there is any discourse about studies, we are named together, because to those speaking of you I at once occur. Nor are there wanting those who are preferred to each of us. 6 But we—no matter, as for me, in what place—are joined; for with me, the first is he who is next after you.

Quin etiam in testamentis debes adnotasse: nisi quis forte alterutri nostrum amicissimus, eadem legata et quidem pariter accipimus. 7 Quae omnia huc spectant, ut invicem ardentius diligamus, cum tot vinculis nos studia mores fama, suprema denique hominum iudicia constringant. Vale.

Nay rather, you ought even to have noted in testaments: unless someone perhaps is a very close friend to either of us, we receive the same legacies, and indeed equally. 7 All these things look to this, that we may love one another more ardently in turn, since by so many bonds—studies, morals, fame, and finally the supreme judgments of men—they bind us. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS CORNUTO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS CORNUTUS, GREETINGS.

1 Pareo, collega carissime, et infirmitati oculorum ut iubes consulo. Nam et huc tecto vehiculo undique inclusus quasi in cubiculo perveni et hic non stilo modo verum etiam lectionibus difficulter sed abstineo, solisque auribus studeo. 2 Cubicula obductis velis opaca nec tamen obscura facio.

1 I obey, dearest colleague, and I take thought for the infirmity of my eyes as you order. For I both arrived here in a covered vehicle, enclosed on all sides as if in a cubicle, and here I, with difficulty, refrain not only from the stylus but even from readings, and I study with my ears alone. 2 I make the cubicles, with the curtains drawn, dim yet not obscure.

Cryptoporticus quoque adopertis inferioribus fenestris tantum umbrae quantum luminis habet. Sic paulatim lucem ferre condisco. 3 Balineum assumo quia prodest, vinum quia non nocet, parcissime tamen.

Even the cryptoporticus, with the lower windows covered, has as much shade as light. Thus, little by little, I learn to bear the light. 3 I take a bath because it is beneficial, wine because it does not harm, yet very sparingly.

Ita assuevi, et nunc custos adest.

Thus I have become accustomed, and now an attendant is present.

4 Gallinam ut a te missam libenter accepi; quam satis acribus oculis, quamquam adhuc lippus, pinguissimam vidi. Vale.

4 I gladly received the hen sent by you; with sufficiently acute eyes, although still bleary-eyed, I saw it to be very fat. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS FALCONI SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS FALCO, GREETINGS.

1 Minus miraberis me tam instanter petisse, ut in amicum meum conferres tribunatum, cum scieris quis ille qualisque. Possum autem iam tibi et nomen indicare et describere ipsum, postquam polliceris. 2 Est Cornelius Minicianus, ornamentum regionis meae seu dignitate seu moribus.

1 You will marvel less that I have so insistently sought that you confer the tribunate upon my friend, when you know who he is and of what sort. Moreover I can now indicate to you both the name and describe the man himself, since you promise. 2 He is Cornelius Minicianus, the ornament of my region, whether in dignity or in morals.

Natus splendide abundat facultatibus, amat studia ut solent pauperes. Idem rectissimus iudex, fortissimus advocatus, amicus fidelissimus. 3 Accepisse te beneficium credes, cum propius inspexeris hominem omnibus honoribus, omnibus titulis — nihil volo elatius de modestissimo viro dicere — parem.

Born splendidly, he abounds in resources, he loves studies as the poor are wont. The same man is a most upright judge, a most stalwart advocate, a most faithful friend. 3 You will believe that you have received a benefit, when you have looked more closely at the man, equal to all honors, to all titles — I do not wish to say anything more loftily about a most modest man — a peer.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS FABATO PROSOCERO SUO S.

GAIUS PLINY TO FABATUS, HIS GREAT-FATHER-IN-LAW, SENDS GREETING.

1 Gaudeo quidem esse te tam fortem, ut Mediolani occurrere Tironi possis, sed ut perseveres esse tam fortis, rogo ne tibi contra rationem aetatis tantum laboris iniungas. Quin immo denuntio, ut illum et domi et intra domum atque etiam intra cubiculi limen exspectes. 2 Etenim, cum a me ut frater diligatur, non debet ab eo quem ego parentis loco observo, exigere officium quod parenti suo remisisset.

1 I rejoice indeed that you are so strong as to be able to meet Tiro at Milan, but, that you may persevere in being so strong, I ask that you not impose upon yourself so much labor contrary to the due measure of your age. Nay rather, I expressly enjoin that you await him both at home and within the house and even within the very threshold of the bedroom. 2 For, since he is cherished by me as a brother, he ought not, from him whom I regard in a parent's place, to exact a duty which he would have remitted to his own parent.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS GEMINO SUO S.

GAIUS PLINY TO HIS GEMINUS, GREETINGS.

1 Ummidia Quadratilla paulo minus octogensimo aetatis anno decessit usque ad novissimam valetudinem viridis, atque etiam ultra matronalem modum compacto corpore et robusto. 2 Decessit honestissimo testamento: reliquit heredes ex besse nepotem, ex tertia parte neptem. Neptem parum novi, nepotem familiarissime diligo, adulescentem singularem nec iis tantum, quos sanguine attingit, inter propinquos amandum.

1 Ummidia Quadratilla died in a little less than her eightieth year of age, green and, even beyond the matronal measure, with a compact and robust body right up to her very last illness. 2 She died with a most honorable testament: she left as heirs, from two-thirds, her grandson, and from the third part, her granddaughter. The granddaughter I know little; the grandson I most intimately prize, a singular young man, and one to be loved among his kin not only by those whom he touches by blood.

3 Ac primum conspicuus forma omnes sermones malignorum et puer et iuvenis evasit, intra quartum et vicensimum annum maritus, et si deus adnuisset pater. Vixit in contubernio aviae delicatae severissime, et tamen obsequentissime. 4 Habebat illa pantomimos fovebatque, effusius quam principi feminae convenit.

3 And first, conspicuous in form, he escaped all the talk of the maligners both as a boy and as a youth; within his twenty-fourth year a husband, and, if a god had nodded, a father. He lived in the company of his delicate grandmother with the utmost strictness, and yet with the utmost obedience. 4 She had pantomimes and coddled them, more extravagantly than is fitting for a woman of high rank.

Hos Quadratus non in theatro, non domi spectabat, nec illa exigebat. 5 Audivi ipsam cum mihi commendaret nepotis sui studia, solere se, ut feminam in illo otio sexus, laxare animum lusu calculorum, solere spectare pantomimos suos, sed cum factura esset alterutrum, semper se nepoti suo praecepisse abiret studeretque; quod mihi non amore eius magis facere quam reverentia videbatur.

Quadratus did not watch these men either in the theater or at home, nor did she exact it. 5 I heard the lady herself, when she was commending to me her grandson’s studies, say that she was accustomed, as a woman in that leisure of her sex, to relax her mind with the game of counters (calculi), to be accustomed to watch her pantomimes; but when she was going to do either of the two, she had always instructed her grandson to go away and study; which seemed to me she did not do more from love of him than from reverence.

6 Miraberis, et ego miratus sum. Proximis sacerdotalibus ludis, productis in commissione pantomimis, cum simul theatro ego et Quadratus egrederemur, ait mihi: 'Scis me hodie primum vidisse saltantem aviae meae libertum?' Hoc nepos. 7 At hercule alienissimi homines in honorem Quadratillae — pudet me dixisse honorem — per adulationis officium in theatrum cursitabant exsultabant plaudebant mirabantur ac deinde singulos gestus dominae cum canticis reddebant; qui nunc exiguissima legata, theatralis operae corollarium, accipient ab herede, qui non spectabat.

6 You will marvel, and I too have marveled. At the most recent sacerdotal games, with pantomimes brought on in the opening number, when Quadratus and I were leaving the theater together, he said to me: 'Do you know that today for the first time I saw my grandmother’s freedman dancing?' This, the grandson. 7 But by Hercules, men utterly unrelated, in honor of Quadratilla — I am ashamed to have said “honor” — by the office of adulation were running about into the theater, exulting, applauding, marveling, and then they reproduced each gesture of the mistress with songs; who now will receive the very meager legacies, the corollary, a perquisite of theatrical service, from the heir who did not watch.

8 Haec, quia soles si quid incidit novi non invitus audire, deinde quia iucundum est mihi quod ceperam gaudium scribendo retractare. Gaudeo enim pietate defunctae, honore optimi iuvenis; laetor etiam quod domus aliquando C. Cassi, huius qui Cassianae scholae princeps et parens fuit, serviet domino non minori. 9 Implebit enim illam Quadratus meus et decebit, rursusque ei pristinam dignitatem celebritatem gloriam reddet, cum tantus orator inde procedet, quantus iuris ille consultus.

8 These things, because you are accustomed not unwillingly to hear whatever new occurs, and then because it is pleasant to me to retrace by writing the joy which I had taken. For I rejoice in the piety of the deceased, in the honor of an excellent youth; I rejoice also that the house once of Gaius Cassius—he who was the chief and parent of the Cassian school—will serve a master not lesser. 9 For my Quadratus will fill it and will grace it, and in turn will restore to it its former dignity, celebrity, and glory, when so great an orator shall proceed thence as great as that jurisconsult in law.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS RUFO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS RUFUS, GREETINGS.

1 O quantum eruditorum aut modestia ipsorum aut quies operit ac subtrahit famae! At nos eos tantum dicturi aliquid aut lecturi timemus, qui studia sua proferunt, cum illi qui tacent hoc amplius praestent, quod maximum opus silentio reverentur. 2 Expertus scribo quod scribo.

1 O how much of the erudite do either their own modesty or their quiet cover and withdraw from fame! But we fear only those who are about to say something or to read, who bring forth their studies, while those who are silent render this the more: that they revere the greatest work with silence. 2 I write what I write from experience.

Terentius Iunior, equestribus militiis atque etiam procuratione Narbonensis provinciae integerrime functus, recepit se in agros suos, paratisque honoribus tranquillissimum otium praetulit. 3 Hunc ego invitatus hospitio ut bonum patrem familiae, ut diligentem agricolam intuebar, de his locuturus, in quibus illum versari putabam; et coeperam, cum ille me doctissimo sermone revocavit ad studia. 4 Quam tersa omnia, quam Latina, quam Graeca!

Terentius Junior, having discharged with utmost integrity the equestrian militiae and even the procuration of the province of Narbonensis, withdrew to his own fields, and, with honors prepared, preferred the most tranquil leisure. 3 This man I, invited in hospitality, regarded as a good paterfamilias, as a diligent farmer, intending to speak about those matters in which I supposed him to be engaged; and I had begun, when he, by most learned discourse, called me back to studies. 4 How polished everything—how Latin, how Greek!

Nam tantum utraque lingua valet, ut ea magis videatur excellere, qua cum maxime loquitur. Quantum ille legit, quantum tenet! Athenis vivere hominem, non in villa putes.

For both languages have such force that the one he is just then speaking seems the more to excel. How much he reads, how much he retains! You would think the man lived at Athens, not in a villa.

5 Quid multa? Auxit sollicitudinem meam effecitque ut illis quos doctissimos novi, non minus hos seductos et quasi rusticos verear. 6 Idem suadeo tibi: sunt enim ut in castris sic etiam in litteris nostris, plures cultu pagano quos cinctos et armatos, et quidem ardentissimo ingenio, diligenter scrutatus invenies.

5 Why say more? He increased my solicitude and brought it about that, alongside those whom I have known as most learned, I no less revere these men withdrawn and, as it were, rustic. 6 I advise the same to you: for, as in the camps, so also in our letters, you will, upon diligent scrutiny, find more in peasant garb than those girt and armed—and indeed with a most ardent genius.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS MAXIMO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS MAXIMUS, GREETINGS.

1 Nuper me cuiusdam amici languor admonuit, optimos esse nos dum infirmi sumus. Quem enim infirmum aut avaritia aut libido sollicitat? 2 Non amoribus servit, non appetit honores, opes neglegit et quantulumcumque, ut relicturus, satis habet.

1 Recently the languor of a certain friend admonished me that we are optimal while we are infirm. For what infirm man does either avarice or libido unsettle? 2 He does not serve amours, he does not seek honors, he neglects wealth, and however little, as about to leave it, he has enough.

Tunc deos tunc hominem esse se meminit, invidet nemini neminem miratur neminem despicit, ac ne sermonibus quidem malignis aut attendit aut alitur: balinea imaginatur et fontes. 3 Haec summa curarum, summa votorum mollemque in posterum et pinguem, si contingat evadere, hoc est innoxiam beatamque destinat vitam. 4 Possum ergo quod plurimis verbis, plurimis etiam voluminibus philosophi docere conantur, ipse breviter tibi mihique praecipere, ut tales esse sani perseveremus, quales nos futuros profitemur infirmi.

Then he remembers the gods, then that he is a man; he envies no one, admires no one, despises no one, and he neither pays heed to malicious talk nor is nourished by it: he pictures baths and springs. 3 This is the sum of his cares, the sum of his vows: for the future a soft and well-fed life, if it should be his lot to get away—that is, he destines a harmless and blessed life. 4 I can therefore, what the philosophers try to teach with very many words, indeed with very many volumes, myself briefly prescribe to you and to me: that, when healthy, we persevere in being such as we profess we shall be when sick.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS SURAE SUO S.

G. PLINY TO HIS SURA, GREETINGS.

1 Et mihi discendi et tibi docendi facultatem otium praebet. Igitur perquam velim scire, esse phantasmata et habere propriam figuram numenque aliquod putes an inania et vana ex metu nostro imaginem accipere. 2 Ego ut esse credam in primis eo ducor, quod audio accidisse Curtio Rufo.

1 And leisure affords to me the faculty of learning and to you of teaching. Therefore I would very much like to know whether you think that phantasms exist and have their own form and some numen, or are empty and vain, receiving an image from our fear. 2 I, for my part, am led to believe that they exist especially by this, which I hear befell Curtius Rufus.

Tenuis adhuc et obscurus, obtinenti Africam comes haeserat. Inclinato die spatiabatur in porticu; offertur ei mulieris figura humana grandior pulchriorque. Perterrito Africam se futurorum praenuntiam dixit: iturum enim Romam honoresque gesturum, atque etiam cum summo imperio in eandem provinciam reversurum, ibique moriturum.

Still of slender means and obscure, he had attached himself as a companion to the man holding Africa. With the day inclining he was walking in the portico; there was offered to him the figure of a woman, grander and more beautiful than human. To the terrified man she said that she was Africa, a foreteller of things to come: for he would go to Rome and bear honors, and even with the highest imperium return to the same province, and there die.

3 Facta sunt omnia. Praeterea accedenti Carthaginem egredientique nave eadem figura in litore occurrisse narratur. Ipse certe implicitus morbo futura praeteritis, adversa secundis auguratus, spem salutis nullo suorum desperante proiecit.

3 All came to pass. Moreover, as he was approaching Carthage and disembarking from the ship, the same figure is reported to have met him on the shore. He himself certainly, entangled in illness, having augured the future from the past and adverse things from prosperous ones, cast away hope of recovery, although none of his own despaired.

4 Iam illud nonne et magis terribile et non minus mirum est quod exponam ut accepi? 5 Erat Athenis spatiosa et capax domus sed infamis et pestilens. Per silentium noctis sonus ferri, et si attenderes acrius, strepitus vinculorum longius primo, deinde e proximo reddebatur: mox apparebat idolon, senex macie et squalore confectus, promissa barba horrenti capillo; cruribus compedes, manibus catenas gerebat quatiebatque.

4 Now is not that thing both more terrible and no less marvelous which I will set forth as I received it? 5 At Athens there was a spacious and capacious house, but ill-famed and pestilent. Through the silence of the night a sound of iron, and, if you attended more keenly, a clanking of chains, was rendered from farther off at first, then from close at hand: soon an eidolon appeared, an old man worn out with leanness and squalor, with a beard let down and hair bristling; on his legs he wore fetters, and on his hands he bore chains and shook them.

6 Inde inhabitantibus tristes diraeque noctes per metum vigilabantur; vigiliam morbus et crescente formidine mors sequebatur. Nam interdiu quoque, quamquam abscesserat imago, memoria imaginis oculis inerrabat, longiorque causis timoris timor erat. Deserta inde et damnata solitudine domus totaque illi monstro relicta; proscribebatur tamen, seu quis emere seu quis conducere ignarus tanti mali vellet.

6 Then, for those inhabiting, sad and dire nights were kept in wakefulness through fear; wakefulness was followed by illness, and, as dread increased, by death. For by day also, although the image had withdrawn, the memory of the image kept wandering before their eyes, and the fear was longer than the causes of fear. Therefore the house was deserted and condemned to solitude, and wholly left to that monster; nevertheless it was advertised, if anyone, unaware of so great an evil, should wish to buy or to rent.

7 Venit Athenas philosophus Athenodorus, legit titulum auditoque pretio, quia suspecta vilitas, percunctatus omnia docetur ac nihilo minus, immo tanto magis conducit. Ubi coepit advesperascere, iubet sterni sibi in prima domus parte, poscit pugillares stilum lumen, suos omnes in interiora dimittit; ipse ad scribendum animum oculos manum intendit, ne vacua mens audita simulacra et inanes sibi metus fingeret. 8 Initio, quale ubique, silentium noctis; dein concuti ferrum, vincula moveri.

7 A philosopher, Athenodorus, came to Athens, reads the notice, and, the price having been heard, because the cheapness was suspect, having inquired into everything he is informed—and nonetheless, nay so much the more, he leases it. When it began to draw toward evening, he orders a bed to be spread for himself in the front part of the house, asks for writing-tablets, a stylus, a light, sends all his people into the inner rooms; he himself directs mind, eyes, and hand toward writing, lest an empty mind should fashion for itself the apparitions heard of and vain fears. 8 At the beginning, as everywhere, the silence of night; then iron is shaken, the chains are moved.

Ille non tollere oculos, non remittere stilum, sed offirmare animum auribusque praetendere. Tum crebrescere fragor, adventare et iam ut in limine, iam ut intra limen audiri. Respicit, videt agnoscitque narratam sibi effigiem.

He did not lift his eyes, did not relax his stylus, but steeled his mind and strained his ears. Then the clangor grows more frequent, draws near, and now is heard as at the threshold, now as within the threshold. He looks back, sees, and recognizes the effigy that had been narrated to him.

9 Stabat innuebatque digito similis vocanti. Hic contra ut paulum exspectaret manu significat rursusque ceris et stilo incumbit. Illa scribentis capiti catenis insonabat.

9 It stood and beckoned with its finger, like one calling. He, in reply, signifies by his hand that it should wait a little, and again leans upon the wax and stylus. She was resounding with chains over the head of the one writing.

Respicit rursus idem quod prius innuentem, nec moratus tollit lumen et sequitur. 10 Ibat illa lento gradu quasi gravis vinculis. Postquam deflexit in aream domus, repente dilapsa deserit comitem.

He looks back again at the same one beckoning as before, and, without delay, he takes up the light and follows. 10 She was going with a slow step, as if heavy with chains. After she turned aside into the court of the house, suddenly, slipping away, she abandons her companion.

Desertus herbas et folia concerpta signum loco ponit. 11 Postero die adit magistratus, monet ut illum locum effodi iubeant. Inveniuntur ossa inserta catenis et implicita, quae corpus aevo terraque putrefactum nuda et exesa reliquerat vinculis; collecta publice sepeliuntur.

Left behind, he places at the spot as a marker grasses and plucked leaves. 11 On the following day he goes to the magistrates, advises that they order that place to be excavated. Bones are found inserted in and entangled with chains, which the body, rotten with age and the earth, had left bare and gnawed down to the fetters; gathered up, they are buried publicly.

Domus postea rite conditis manibus caruit.

Afterwards, with the shades duly laid to rest, the house was free of ghosts.

12 Et haec quidem affirmantibus credo; illud affirmare aliis possum. Est libertus mihi non illitteratus. Cum hoc minor frater eodem lecto quiescebat.

12 And these things indeed I believe those affirming; that other thing I can affirm to others. I have a freedman not illiterate. With this man my younger brother was resting in the same bed.

Is visus est sibi cernere quendam in toro residentem, admoventemque capiti suo cultros, atque etiam ex ipso vertice amputantem capillos. Ubi illuxit, ipse circa verticem tonsus, capilli iacentes reperiuntur. 13 Exiguum temporis medium, et rursus simile aliud priori fidem fecit.

He seemed to himself to discern someone sitting on the couch, applying razors to his head and even cutting off hairs from the very crown. When it grew light, he himself was found shorn around the crown, and the hairs lying there were discovered. 13 A small interval of time intervened, and again another thing similar to the former gave it credence.

Puer in paedagogio mixtus pluribus dormiebat. Venerunt per fenestras — ita narrat — in tunicis albis duo cubantemque detonderunt et qua venerant recesserunt. Hunc quoque tonsum sparsosque circa capillos dies ostendit.

A boy was sleeping in the schoolroom, mixed with several others. They came through the windows — so he narrates — two in white tunics, and they shaved the one lying down and withdrew by the way they had come. The day showed him too tonsured, and hairs scattered around.

14 Nihil notabile secutum, nisi forte quod non fui reus, futurus, si Domitianus sub quo haec acciderunt diutius vixisset. Nam in scrinio eius datus a Caro de me libellus inventus est; ex quo coniectari potest, quia reis moris est summittere capillum, recisos meorum capillos depulsi quod imminebat periculi signum fuisse.

14 Nothing notable followed, unless perhaps that I was not a defendant—about to be one, if Domitian, under whom these things happened, had lived longer. For in his scrinium a little book about me, delivered by Carus, was found; from which it can be conjectured that, since it is the custom for the accused to submit/let down the hair, the cutting off of my hairs was a sign that the peril which was impending had been driven away.

15 Proinde rogo, eruditionem tuam intendas. Digna res est quam diu multumque consideres; ne ego quidem indignus, cui copiam scientiae tuae facias. 16 Licet etiam utramque in partem — ut soles — disputes, ex altera tamen fortius, ne me suspensum incertumque dimittas, cum mihi consulendi causa fuerit, ut dubitare desinerem.

15 Accordingly I ask you to direct your erudition. It is a worthy matter for you to consider long and much; nor am I indeed unworthy, for whom you should grant the abundance of your science. 16 You may also argue on both sides — as you are wont — yet more strongly from one side, lest you leave me in suspense and uncertain, since my reason for consulting was that I might cease to doubt.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS SEPTICIO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS SEPTICIUS, GREETINGS.

1 Ais quosdam apud te reprehendisse, tamquam amicos meos ex omni occasione ultra modum laudem. 2 Agnosco crimen, amplector etiam. Quid enim honestius culpa benignitatis?

1 You say that certain people in your presence have found fault, on the ground that I praise my friends beyond measure at every opportunity. 2 I acknowledge the charge; I even embrace it. For what is more honorable than the fault of benignity?

Qui sunt tamen isti, qui amicos meos melius norint? Sed, ut norint, quid invident mihi felicissimo errore? Ut enim non sint tales quales a me praedicantur, ego tamen beatus quod mihi videntur.

Who, however, are those who know my friends better? But even if they do know them, why do they begrudge me my happiest error? For even if they are not such as they are proclaimed by me, I am nonetheless happy that they seem so to me.

3 Igitur ad alios hanc sinistram diligentiam conferant; nec sunt parum multi, qui carpere amicos suos iudicium vocant. Mihi numquam persuadebunt ut meos amari a me nimium putem. Vale.

3 Therefore let them transfer this sinister diligence to others; nor are they too few who call carping at their friends “judgment.” They will never persuade me to think that my friends are loved by me too much. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS MONTANO SUO S.

GAIUS PLINY TO HIS MONTANUS, GREETINGS.

1 Ridebis, deinde indignaberis, deinde ridebis, si legeris, quod nisi legeris non potes credere. 2 Est via Tiburtina intra primum lapidem — proxime adnotavi — monimentum Pallantis ita inscriptum: 'Huic senatus ob fidem pietatemque erga patronos ornamenta praetoria decrevit et sestertium centies quinquagies, cuius honore contentus fuit.' 3 Equidem numquam sum miratus quae saepius a fortuna quam a iudicio proficiscerentur; maxime tamen hic me titulus admonuit, quam essent mimica et inepta, quae interdum in hoc caenum, in has sordes abicerentur, quae denique ille furcifer et recipere ausus est et recusare, atque etiam ut moderationis exemplum posteris prodere. 4 Sed quid indignor?

1 You will laugh, then you will be indignant, then you will laugh, if you read, what unless you read you cannot believe. 2 On the Tiburtine Way within the first milestone — I recently noted — there is a monument of Pallas inscribed thus: 'To this man the senate, on account of his good faith and pietas toward his patrons, decreed praetorian ornaments and fifteen million sesterces, with the honor of which he was content.' 3 For my part I have never marveled at things which proceeded more often from fortune than from judgment; yet this inscription especially reminded me how mimic and inept were the things which were sometimes hurled into this mud, into this filth—what things, finally, that gallows-bird both dared to accept and to refuse, and even to put forth to posterity as an example of moderation. 4 But why am I indignant?

Ridere satius, ne se magnum aliquid adeptos putent, qui huc felicitate perveniunt ut rideantur. Vale.

It is better to laugh, lest those who by felicity arrive hither to be laughed at think themselves to have achieved something great. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS GENITORI SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS FATHER, GREETING.

1 Torqueor quod discipulum, ut scribis, optimae spei amisisti. Cuius et valetudine et morte impedita studia tua quidni sciam? cum sis omnium officiorum observantissimus, cumque omnes quos probas effusissime diligas.

1 I am tormented that you have lost, as you write, a pupil of the highest promise. Why should I not know that your studies were impeded both by his ill-health and by his death? since you are most observant of all duties, and since you love most effusively all those whom you approve.

2 Me huc quoque urbana negotia persequuntur; non desunt enim qui me iudicem aut arbitrum faciant. 3 Accedunt querelae rusticorum, qui auribus meis post longum tempus suo iure abutuntur. Instat et necessitas agrorum locandorum, perquam molesta: adeo rarum est invenire idoneos conductores.

2 My urban business pursues me here too; for there are not lacking those who make me a judge or an arbiter. 3 There are added the complaints of the rustics, who, after a long time, make use, as is their right, of my ears. Pressing too is the necessity of leasing out the fields, very troublesome: so rare is it to find suitable lessees.

4 Quibus ex causis precario studeo, studeo tamen. Nam et scribo aliquid et lego; sed cum lego, ex comparatione sentio quam male scribam, licet tu mihi bonum animum facias, 5 qui libellos meos de ultione Helvidi orationi Demosthenis κατὰ . . . μειδίου confers. Quam sane, cum componerem illos, habui in manibus, non ut aemularer — improbum enim ac paene furiosum -, sed tamen imitarer et sequerer, quantum aut diversitas ingeniorum maximi et minimi, aut causae dissimilitudo pateretur.

4 For these reasons I study by favor, on sufferance, yet I study nonetheless. For I both write something and read; but when I read, by comparison I perceive how poorly I write, although you encourage me, 5 you who compare my little books on the vengeance for Helvidius to Demosthenes’ oration κατὰ . . . μειδίου. Which, indeed, when I was composing those, I had in my hands, not in order to emulate—for that would be impudent and almost furious-mad—but yet to imitate and to follow, so far as either the diversity of talents, the greatest and the least, or the dissimilarity of the case would allow.

Vale.

Farewell.

C. PLINIUS CORNUTO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO HIS CORNUTUS, GREETINGS.

1 Claudius Pollio amari a te cupit dignus hoc ipso quod cupit, deinde quod ipse te diligit; neque enim fere quisquam exigit istud nisi qui facit. Vir alioqui rectus integer quietus ac paene ultra modum — si quis tamen ultra modum — verecundus. 2 Hunc, cum simul militaremus, non solum ut commilito inspexi.

1 Claudius Pollio wishes to be loved by you, worthy by this very fact that he wishes it, and next because he himself loves you; for indeed hardly anyone demands this except the one who does it. A man otherwise upright, of integrity, quiet, and almost beyond measure — if anyone, however, can be beyond measure — modest. 2 This man, when we were soldiering together, I observed not only as a fellow-soldier.

Praeerat alae miliariae; ego iussus a legato consulari rationes alarum et cohortium excutere, ut magnam quorundam foedamque avaritiam, neglegentiam parem, ita huius summam integritatem, sollicitam diligentiam inveni. 3 Postea promotus ad amplissimas procurationes, nulla occasione corruptus ab insito abstinentiae amore deflexit; numquam secundis rebus intumuit; numquam officiorum varietate continuam laudem humanitatis infregit, eademque firmitate animi laboribus suffecit, qua nunc otium patitur. 4 Quod quidem paulisper cum magna sua laude intermisit et posuit, a Corellio nostro ex liberalitate imperatoris Nervae emendis dividendisque agris adiutor assumptus.

He was in command of a thousand-strong cavalry wing; I, ordered by the consular legate to audit the accounts of the wings and cohorts, found that, just as I discovered in certain men great and foul avarice, with negligence to match, so in him I found utmost integrity and solicitous diligence. 3 Afterwards, promoted to procurations of the highest rank, corrupted by no opportunity he did not swerve from his inborn love of self-restraint; he never swelled in prosperous circumstances; never, by the variety of offices, did he impair the continuous praise of his humanity, and with the same firmness of spirit he was equal to labors with which now he also endures leisure. 4 This indeed for a short while, with great credit to himself, he interrupted and set aside, having been taken on by our Corellius, through the liberality of the emperor Nerva, as a helper for buying and distributing lands.

Etenim qua gloria dignum est, summo viro in tanta eligendi facultate praecipue placuisse! 5 Idem quam reverenter, quam fideliter amicos colat, multorum supremis iudiciis, in his Anni Bassi gravissimi civis, credere potes, cuius memoriam tam grata praedicatione prorogat et extendit, ut librum de vita eius — nam studia quoque sicut alias bonas artes veneratur — ediderit. 6 Pulchrum istud et raritate ipsa probandum, cum plerique hactenus defunctorum meminerint ut querantur.

For indeed, worthy of what glory is it, to have especially pleased a most eminent man amid so great a freedom of choice! 5 That same man, how reverently, how faithfully he cherishes friends, you can believe from the final judgments (wills) of many, among these that of Annius Bassus, a most weighty citizen, whose memory he prolongs and extends by so pleasing a proclamation that he has published a book on his life — for he venerates studies as he does other good arts as well. 6 That is beautiful and to be approved by its very rarity, since for the most part people have thus far remembered the deceased only so as to complain.

7 Hunc hominem appetentissimum tui, mihi crede, complectere apprehende, immo et invita, ac sic ama tamquam gratiam referas. Neque enim obligandus sed remunerandus est in amoris officio, qui prior coepit. Vale.

7 This man, most appetent of you—believe me—embrace him, apprehend him, nay even invite him, and love him thus as though you were returning a favor. For in the office of love he is not to be obligated but to be remunerated, he who began first. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS FABATO PROSOCERO SUO S.

C. PLINY TO FABATUS, HIS GRANDFATHER-IN-LAW, GREETINGS.

1 Delector iucundum tibi fuisse Tironis mei adventum; quod vero scribis oblata occasione proconsulis plurimos manumissos, unice laetor. Cupio enim patriam nostram omnibus quidem rebus augeri, maxime tamen civium numero: id enim oppidis firmissimum ornamentum. 2 Illud etiam me non ut ambitiosum sed tamen iuvat, quod adicis te meque et gratiarum actione et laude celebratos.

1 I am delighted that the arrival of my Tiro was pleasant to you; but as to what you write, that, with the occasion offered by the proconsul, very many were manumitted, I rejoice supremely. For I desire that our fatherland be increased indeed in all things, but most of all in the number of citizens: for that is the firmest ornament of towns. 2 This also pleases me—not as something ambitious, yet still—that you add that both you and I have been celebrated with both a vote of thanks and with praise.

Est enim, ut Xenophon ait,ἥδιστον ἄκουσμα ἔπαινος, utique si te mereri putes. Vale.

For, as Xenophon says, the sweetest thing to hear is praise, especially if you think you deserve it. Farewell.

C. PLINIUS TACITO SUO S.

C. PLINIUS TO HIS TACITUS, GREETINGS.

1 Auguror nec me fallit augurium, historias tuas immortales futuras; quo magis illis — ingenue fatebor — inseri cupio. 2 Nam si esse nobis curae solet ut facies nostra ab optimo quoque artifice exprimatur, nonne debemus optare, ut operibus nostris similis tui scriptor praedicatorque contingat? 3 Demonstro ergo quamquam diligentiam tuam fugere non possit, cum sit in publicis actis, demonstro tamen quo magis credas, iucundum mihi futurum si factum meum, cuius gratia periculo crevit, tuo ingenio tuo testimonio ornaveris.

1 I augur—and my augury does not deceive me—that your histories will be immortal; wherefore all the more I—frankly I will confess it—am eager to be inserted into them. 2 For if it is our concern that our face be portrayed by the best artificer, ought we not to wish that to our works there should befall a writer like you and a herald as well? 3 I therefore point out—although it cannot escape your diligence, since it is in the public acts—I nevertheless point it out the more that you may believe, that it will be pleasant to me if you adorn my deed, whose credit grew through danger, with your talent and your testimony.

4 Dederat me senatus cum Herennio Senecione advocatum provinciae Baeticae contra Baebium Massam, damnatoque Massa censuerat, ut bona eius publice custodirentur. Senecio, cum explorasset consules postulationibus vacaturos, convenit me et 'Qua concordia' inquit 'iniunctam nobis accusationem exsecuti sumus, hac adeamus consules petamusque, ne bona dissipari sinant, quorum esse in custodia debent.' 5 Respondi: 'Cum simus advocati a senatu dati, dispice num peractas putes partes nostras senatus cognitione finita.' Et ille: 'Tu quem voles tibi terminum statues, cui nulla cum provincia necessitudo nisi ex beneficio tuo et hoc recenti; ipse et natus ibi et quaestor in ea fui.' 6 Tum ego: 'Si fixum tibi istud ac deliberatum, sequar te ut, si qua ex hoc invidia, non tantum tua.' 7 Venimus ad consules; dicit Senecio quae res ferebat, aliqua subiungo. Vixdum conticueramus, et Massa questus Senecionem non advocati fidem sed inimici amaritudinem implesse, impietatis reum postulat.

4 The senate had appointed me, together with Herennius Senecio, as advocate for the province Baetica against Baebius Massa, and when Massa had been condemned it had decreed that his goods be kept in public custody. Senecio, when he had ascertained that the consuls would be free for petitions, meets me and says, 'With the same concord with which we executed the accusation enjoined upon us, let us approach the consuls and ask that they not allow the goods to be dissipated, which ought to be in custody.' 5 I replied: 'Since we have been given as advocates by the senate, consider whether you think our parts completed, the senate’s cognizance having been concluded.' And he: 'Set whatever limit you wish for yourself—you who have no tie with the province save by your benefaction and this recent one; I myself was both born there and was quaestor in it.' 6 Then I: 'If that is fixed and deliberated with you, I will follow you, so that, if any ill-will arises from this, it will not be yours alone.' 7 We come to the consuls; Senecio says what the matter required, I subjoin some points. We had scarcely fallen silent, when Massa, complaining that Senecio had fulfilled not an advocate’s good faith but an enemy’s bitterness, demands him as a defendant on a charge of impiety.

8 Horror omnium; ego autem 'Vereor' inquam, 'clarissimi consules, ne mihi Massa silentio suo praevaricationem obiecerit, quod non et me reum postulavit.' Quae vox et statim excepta, et postea multo sermone celebrata est. 9 Divus quidem Nerva — nam privatus quoque attendebat his quae recte in publico fierent — missis ad me gravissimis litteris non mihi solum, verum etiam saeculo est gratulatus, cui exemplum — sic enim scripsit — simile antiquis contigisset. 10 Haec, utcumque se habent, notiora clariora maiora tu facies; quamquam non exigo ut excedas actae rei modum.

8 Horror of all; but I said, “I fear, most illustrious consuls, that Massa by his silence has thrown prevarication in my teeth, because he did not also demand me as a defendant.” This utterance was both immediately caught up, and afterwards celebrated with much talk. 9 The deified Nerva— for even as a private citizen he paid heed to those things which were done rightly in public— sent to me most weighty letters and congratulated not me only, but even the age, to which an example— so he wrote— similar to the ancients had befallen. 10 These things, however they stand, you will make more known, clearer, greater; although I do not require that you exceed the measure of the deed done.

Nam nec historia debet egredi veritatem, et honeste factis veritas sufficit. Vale.

For neither ought history to go beyond the truth, and for honorable deeds the truth suffices. Farewell.