The Harvard classics Volume 9

ST. MICHAEL'S COLLEGE

TORONTO, CANADA

LIBRARY

PRESENTED BY

J. J. Me Knight

THE HARVARD CLASSICS

The Five-Foot Shelf of Books

THE HARVARD CLASSICS
EDITED BY CHARLES W. ELIOT, LL.D.

Letters of Marcus Tullius Cicero

WITH HIS TREATISES ON

Friendship and Old Age

TRANSLATED BY E. S. SHUCKBURGH
AND

Letters of Gaius Plinius Caecilius
Secundus

TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM MELMOTH
REVISED BY F. C. T. BOSANQ.UET

With Introductions and Notes
Volume 9

P. F. Collier & Son Corporation

NEW YORK

Copyright, 1909
BY P. F. COLLIER & SON

MANUFACTURED IN U. S. A.

MAY 27 1953

CONTENTS

PAGE

ON FRIENDSHIP 9

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

ON OLD AGE 45

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

LETTERS 81

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

LETTERS 187

GAIUS PLINIUS C^CILIUS SECUNDUS

CICERO'S TREATISES ON
FRIENDSHIP AND OLD AGE

TRANSLATED BY
E. S. SHUCKBURGH

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO, the greatest of Roman orators and the chief
master of Latin prose style, was born at Arpinum, Jan. 3, 106 B.C. His
father, who was a man of property and belonged to the class of the
"Knights," moved to Rome when Cicero was a child; and the future
statesman received an elaborate education in rhetoric, law, and philos-
ophy, studying and practising under some of the most noted teachers of
the time. He began his career as an advocate at the age of twenty-five,
and almost immediately came to be recognized not only as a man of
brilliant talents but also as a courageous upholder of justice in the face
of grave political danger. After two years of practice he left Rome to
travel in Greece and Asia, taking all the opportunities that offered to
study his art under distinguished masters. He returned to Rome greatly
improved in health and in professional skill, and in 76 B.C. was elected
to the office of quaestor. He was assigned to the province of Lilybaeum in
Sicily, and the vigor and justice of his administration earned him the
gratitude of the inhabitants. It was at their request that he undertook in
70 B.C. the prosecution of Verres, who as praetor had subjected the
Sicilians to incredible extortion and oppression; and his successful con-
duct of this case, which ended in the conviction and banishment of Verres,
may be said to have launched him on his political career. He became
aedile in the same year, in 67 B.C. praetor, and in 64 B.C. was elected
consul by a large majority. The most important event of the year of his
consulship was the conspiracy of Catiline. This notorious criminal of
patrician rank had conspired with a number of others, many of them
young men of high birth but dissipated character, to seize the chief offices
of the state, and to extricate themselves from the pecuniary and other
difficulties that had resulted from their excesses, by the wholesale plunder
of the city. The plot was unmasked by the vigilance of Cicero, five of the
traitors were summarily executed, and in the overthrow of the army that
had been gathered in their support Catiline himself perished. Cicero
regarded himself as the savior of his country, and his country for the
moment seemed to give grateful assent.

But reverses were at hand. During the existence of the political com-
bination of Pompey, Caesar, and Crassus, known as the first triumvirate,
P. Clodius, an enemy of Cicero's, proposed a law banishing "any one who
had put Roman citizens to death without trial." This was aimed at
Cicero on account of his share in the Catiline affair, and in March,

6 INTRODUCTORY NOTE

58 B.C., he left Rome. The same day a law was passed by which he
was banished by name, and his property was plundered and destroyed, a
temple to Liberty being erected on the site of his house in the city. During
his exile Cicero's manliness to some extent deserted him. He drifted
from place to place, seeking the protection of officials against assassina-
tion, writing letters urging his supporters to agitate for his recall, some-
times accusing them of lukewarmness and even treachery, bemoaning the
ingratitude of his country or regretting the course of action that had led
to his outlawry, and suffering from extreme depression over his separa-
tion from his wife and children and the wreck of his political ambitions.
Finally, in August, 57 B.C., the decree for his restoration was passed,
and he returned to Rome the next month, being received with immense
popular enthusiasm. During the next few years the renewal of the under-
standing among the triumvirs shut Cicero out from any leading part in
politics, and he resumed his activity in the law-courts, his most impor-
tant case being, perhaps, the defense of Milo for the murder of Clodius,
Cicero's most troublesome enemy. This oration, in the revised form in
which it has come down to us, is ranked as among the finest specimens
of the art of the orator, though in its original form it failed to secure
Milo's acquittal. Meantime, Cicero was also devoting much time to
literary composition, and his letters show great dejection over the politi-
cal situation, and a somewhat wavering attitude towards the various
parties in the state. In 51 B.C. he went to Cilicia in Asia Minor as pro-
consul, an office which he administered with efficiency and integrity in
civil affairs and with success in military. He returned to Italy at the
end of the following year, and he was publicly thanked by the senate for
his services, but disappointed in his hopes for a triumph. The war for
supremacy between Caesar and Pompey, which had for some time been
gradually growing more certain, broke out in 49 B.C., when Caesar led
his army across the Rubicon, and Cicero after much irresolution threw
in his lot with Pompey, who was overthrown the next year in the battle
of Pharsalus and later murdered in Egypt. Cicero returned to Italy,
where Caesar treated him magnanimously, and for some time he devoted
himself to philosophical and rhetorical writing. In 46 B.C. he divorced
his wife Terentia, to whom he had been married for thirty years, and
married the young and wealthy Publilia in order to relieve himself from
financial difficulties; but her also he shortly divorced. Caesar, who had
now become supreme in Rome, was assassinated in 44 B.C., and though
Cicero was not a sharer in the conspiracy, he seems to have approved the
deed. In the confusion which followed he supported the cause of the

INTRODUCTORY NOTE 7

conspirators against Antony; and when finally the triumvirate of Antony,
Octavius, and Lepidus was established, Cicero was included among the
proscribed, and on December 7, 43 B.C., he was killed by agents of
Antony. His head and hand were cut off and exhibited at Rome.

The most important orations of the last months of his life were the
fourteen "Philippics" delivered against Antony, and the price of this
enmity he paid with his life.

To his contemporaries Cicero was primarily the great forensic and
political orator of his time, and the fifty-eight speeches which have come
down to us bear testimony to the skill, wit, eloquence, and passion which
gave him his preeminence. But these speeches of necessity deal with the
minute details of the occasions which called them forth, and so require
for their appreciation a full knowledge of the history, political and per-
sonal, of the time. The letters, on the other hand, are less elaborate both
in style and in the handling of current events, while they serve to reveal
his personality, and to throw light upon Roman life in the last days of
the Republic in an extremely vivid fashion. Cicero as a man, in spite of
his self-importance, the vacillation of his political conduct in desperate
crises, and the whining despondency of his times of adversity, stands out
as at bottom a patriotic Roman of substantial honesty, who gave his life
to check the inevitable fall of the commonwealth to which he was devoted.
The evils which were undermining the Republic bear so many striking
resemblances to those which threaten the civic and national life of Amer-
ica to-day that the interest of the period is by no means merely historical.

As a philosopher, Cicero's most important function was to make his
countrymen familiar with the main schools of Greek thought. Much of
this writing is thus of secondary interest to us in comparison with his
originals, but in the fields of religious theory and of the application of
philosophy to life he made important first-hand contributions. From
these works have been selected the two treatises, On Old Age and On
Friendship, which have proved of most permanent and widespread
interest to posterity, and which give a clear impression of the way in
which a high-minded Roman thought about some of the main problems
of human life.

ON FRIENDSHIP

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

THE augur Quintus Mucius Scaevola used to recount a num-
ber of stories about his father-in-law, Gaius Ladius, accurately
remembered and charmingly told; and whenever he talked
about him always gave him the title of "the wise" without any hesi-
tation. I had been introduced by my father to Scasvola as soon as I
had assumed the toga virilis, and I took advantage of the introduc-
tion never to quit the venerable man's side as long as I was able to
stay and he was spared to us. The consequence was that I com-
mitted to memory many disquisitions of his, as well as many short
pointed apophthegms, and, in short, took as much advantage of his
wisdom as I could. When he died, I attached myself to Scarvola the
Pontifex, whom I may venture to call quite the most distinguished
of our countrymen for ability and uprightness. But of this latter I
shall take other occasions to speak. To return to Sca?vola the augur :
Among many other occasions I particularly remember one. He was
sitting on a semicircular garden-bench, as was his custom, when I
and a very few intimate friends were there, and he chanced to
turn the conversation upon a subject which about that time was in
many people's mouths./You must remember, Atticus, for you were
very intimate with Publius Sulpicius, what expressions of astonish-
ment, or even indignation, were called forth by his mortal quarrel, as
tribune, with the consul Quintus Pompeius, with whom he had
formerly lived on terms of the closest intimacy and affection. Well,
on this occasion, happening to mention this particular circumstance,
Scsvola detailed to us a discourse of Laelius on friendship delivered
to himself and Laelius's other son-in-law, Gaius Fannius, son of
Marcus Fannius, a few days after the death of Africanus. The points
of that discussion I committed to memory, and have arranged them
in this book at my own discretion. For I have brought the speakers,

9

10 CICERO

as it were, personally on to my stage to prevent the constant "said I"
and "said he" of a narrative, and to give the discourse the air of
being orally delivered in our hearing.

You have often urged me to write something on Friendship, and
I quite acknowledged that the subject seemed one worth everybody's
investigation, and specially suited to the close intimacy that has
existed between you and me. Accordingly I was quite ready to
benefit the public at your request.

As to the dramatis personce: In the treatise On Old Age, which I
dedicated to you, I introduced Cato as chief speaker. No one, I
thought, could with greater propriety speak on old age than one
who had been an old man longer than any one else, and had been
exceptionally vigorous in his old age. Similarly, having learnt from
tradition that of all friendships that between Gaius Ladius and
Publius Scipio was the most remarkable, I thought Laelius was just
the person to support the chief part in a discussion on friendship
which Scaevola remembered him to have actually taken. Moreover,
a discussion of this sort gains somehow in weight from the authority
of men of ancient days, especially if they happen to have been dis-
tinguished. So it comes about that in reading over what I have
myself written I have a feeling at times that it is actually Cato that
is speaking, not I.

Finally, as I sent the former essay to you as a gift from one old
man to another, so I have dedicated this On Friendship as a most
affectionate friend to his friend. In the former Cato spoke, who was
the oldest and wisest man of his day; in this Laelius speaks on friend-
ship Laelius, who was at once a wise man (that was the title given
him) and eminent for his famous friendship. Please forget me for a
while; imagine Laelius to be speaking.

Gaius Fannius and Quintus Mucius come to call on their father-
in-law after the death of Africanus. They start the subject; Laelius
answers them. And the whole essay on friendship is his. In reading
it you will recognise a picture of yourself.

2. Fannius. You are quite right, Laslius ! there never was a
better or more illustrious character than Africanus. But you should
consider that at the present moment all eyes are on you. Everybody

ON FRIENDSHIP II

calls you "the wise" par excellence, and thinks you so. The same
mark of respect was lately paid Cato, and we know that in the last
generation Lucius Atilius was called "the wise." But in both cases
the word was applied with a certain difference. Atilius was so called
from his reputation as a jurist; Cato got the name as a kind of
honorary title and in extreme old age because of his varied experience
of affairs, and his reputation for foresight and firmness, and the
sagacity of the opinions which he delivered in senate and forum.
You, however, are regarded as "wise" in a somewhat different
sense not alone on account of natural ability and character, but also
from your industry and learning; and not in the sense in which the
vulgar, but that in which scholars, give that title. In this sense we do
not read of any one being called wise in Greece except one man at
Athens; and he, to be sure, had been declared by the oracle of Apollo
also to be "the supremely wise man." For those who commonly go
by the name of the Seven Sages are not admitted into the category
of the wise by fastidious critics. Your wisdom people believe to
consist in this, that you look upon yourself as self -sufficing and regard
the changes and chances of mortal life as powerless to affect your
virtue. Accordingly they are always asking me, and doubtless also
our Scaevola here, how you bear the death of Africanus. This
curiosity has been the more excited from the fact that on the Nones
of this month, when we augurs met as usual in the suburban villa
of Decimus Brutus for consultation, you were not present, though
it had always been your habit to keep that appointment and perform
that duty with the utmost punctuality.

Sccevola. Yes, indeed, Lzlius, I am often asked the question men-
tioned by Fannius. But I answer in accordance with what I have
observed: I say that you bear in a reasonable manner the grief
which you have sustained in the death of one who was at once a
man of the most illustrious character and a very dear friend. That
of course you could not but be affected anything else would have
been wholly unnatural in a man of your gentle nature but that the
cause of your non-attendance at our college meeting was illness, not
melancholy.

Lcelius. Thanks, Scaevola! You are quite right; you spoke the
exact truth. For in fact I had no right to allow myself to be with-

12 CICERO

drawn from a duty which I had regularly performed, as long as I was
well, by any personal misfortune; nor do I think that anything that
can happen will cause a man of principle to intermit a duty. As for
your telling me, Fannius, of the honourable appellation given me
(an appellation to which I do not recognise my title, and to which
I make no claim), you doubtless act from feelings of affection; but
I must say that you seem to me to do less than justice to Cato. If
any one was ever "wise," of which I have my doubts, he was.
Putting aside everything else, consider how he bore his son's death!
I had not forgotten Paulus; I had seen with my own eyes Gallus.
But they lost their sons when mere children; Cato his when he was
a full-grown man with an assured reputation. Do not therefore be
in a hurry to reckon as Gate's superior even that same famous
personage whom Apollo, as you say, declared to be "the wisest."
Remember the former's reputation rests on deeds, the latter's on
words.

3. Now, as far as I am concerned (I speak to both of you now),
believe me, the case stands thus: - If I were to say that I am not
affected by regret for Scipio, I must leave the philosophers to justify
my conduct, but in point of fact I should be telling a lie. Affected of
course I am by the loss of a friend as I think there will never be
again, such as I can fearlessly say there never was before. But I stand
in no need of medicine. I can find my own consolation, and it
consists chiefly in my being free from the mistaken notion which
generally causes pain at the departure of friends. To Scipio I am con-
vinced no evil has befallen: mine is the disaster, if disaster there be;
and to be severely distressed at one's own misfortunes does not show
that you love your friend, but that you love yourself.

As for him, who can say that all is not more than well? For, unless
he had taken the fancy to wish for immortality, the last thing of
which he ever thought, what is there for which mortal man may
wish that he did not attain? In his early manhood he more than
justified by extraordinary personal courage the hopes which his
fellow-citizens had conceived of him as a child. He never was a
candidate for the consulship, yet was elected consul twice: the first
time before the legal age; the second at a time which, as far as he was
concerned, was soon enough, but was near being too late for the

ON FRIENDSHIP 13

interests of the State. By the overthrow of two cities which were the
most bitter enemies of our Empire, he put an end not only to the
wars then raging, but also to the possibility of others in the future.
What need to mention the exquisite grace of his manners, his dutiful
devotion to his mother, his generosity to his sisters, his liberality
to his relations, the integrity of his conduct to every one? You know
all this already. Finally, the estimation in which his fellow-citizens
held him has been shown by the signs of mourning which accom-
panied his obsequies. What could such a man have gained by the
addition of a few years ? \Though age need not be a burden, as I
remember Cato arguing in the presence of myself and Scipio two
years before he died, yet it cannot but take away the vigour ancl\
freshness which Scipio was still enjoying.) We may conclude there- \
fore that his life, from the good fortune which had attended him
and the glory he had obtained, was so circumstanced that it could
not be bettered, while the suddenness of his death saved him the
sensation of dying. As to the manner of his death it is difficult to
speak; you see what people suspect. Thus much, however, I may
say: Scipio in his lifetime saw many days of supreme triumph and
exultation, but none more magnificent than his last, on which, upon
the rising of the Senate, he was escorted by the senators and the
people of Rome, by the allies, and by the Latins, to his own door.
From such an elevation of popular esteem the next step seems
naturally to be an ascent to the gods above, rather than a descent to
Hades.
4. For I am not one of these modern philosophers who maintain

that our souls perish with our bodies, and that death ends all. With

i . ~^^

me ancient opinion has more weight :ywhethep it be that of our
own ancestors, who attributed such solemn observances to the dead,
as they plainly would not have done if they had believed them to be
wholly annihilated <-ob that of the philosophers who once visited this
country, and who by their maxims and doctrines educated Magna
Grzcia, which at that time was in a flourishing condition, though it
has now been ruined; or that of the man who was declared by
Apollo's oracle to be "most wise," and who used to teach without the
variation which is to be found in most philosophers that "the souls
of men are divine, and that when they have quitted the body a return

14 CICERO

to heaven is open/^them, least difficult to those who have been most
virtuous and justJ^This opinion was shared by Scipio. Only a few
days before his death as though he had a presentiment of what was
coming he discoursed for three days on the state of the republic.
The company consisted of Philus and Manlius and several others,
and I had brought you, Sczvola, along with me. JThe last part of his
discourse referred principally to the immortality of the soul; for he
told us what he had heard from the elder Africanus in a dream.
Now if it be true that in proportion to a man's goodness the escape
from what may be called the prison and bonds of the flesh is easiest,
whom can we imagine to have had an easier voyage to the gods
than Scipio? fl am disposed to think, therefore, that in his case
mourning would be a sign of envy rather than of friendsjtiip^ If,
however, the truth rather is that the body and soul perish together,
and that no sensation remains, then though there is nothing good in
death, at least there is nothing bad. Remove sensation, and a man is
exactly as though he had never been born; and yet that this man
was born is a joy to me, and will be a subject of rejoicing to this
State to its last hour.

Wherefore, as I said before, all is as well as possible with him. Not
so with me; for as I entered life before him, it would have been fairer
for me to leave it also before him. Yet such is the pleasure I take in
recalling our friendship, that I look upon my life as having been a
happy one because I have spent it with Scipio. With him I was
associated in public and private business; with him I lived in Rome
and served abroad; and between us there was the most complete
harmony in our tastes, our pursuits, and our sentiments, which is the
true secret of friendship. It is not therefore in that reputation for
wisdom mentioned just now by Fannius especially as it happens
to be groundless that I find my happiness so much, as in the hope
that the memory of our friendship will be lasting. What makes me
care the more about this is the fact that in all history there are
scarcely three or four pairs of friends on record; and it is classed with
them that I cherish a hope of the friendship of Scipio and Lselius
being known to posterity.

Fannius. Of course that must be so, Laelius. But since you have
mentioned the word friendship, and we are at leisure, you would be

ON FRIENDSHIP 15

doing me a great kindness, and I expect Scsevola also, if you would
do as it is your habit to do when asked questions on other subjects,
and tell us your sentiments about friendship, its nature, and the rules
to be observed in regard to it.

Sccevola. I shall of course be delighted. Fannius has anticipated
the very request I was about to make. So you will be doing us
both a great favour.

5. Lcelius. I should certainly have no objection if I felt confidence
in myself. For the theme is a noble one, and we are (as Fannius has
said) at leisure. But who am I ? and what ability have I ? What you
propose is all very well for professional philosophers, who are used,
particularly if Greeks^ro have the subject for discussion proposed to
them on the spur of the moment^t is a task of considerable diffi-
culty, and requires no little practicg. Therefore for a set discourse
on friendship you must go, I think, to professional lecturers. AHJ
can do is to urge on you to regard friendship as the greatest thing
in the world; for there is nothing which so fits in with our nature,
or is so exactly what we want in prosperity or adversity.

But I must at the very beginning lay down this principle friend-
ship can only exist between good men. I do not, however, press this
too closely, like the philosophers who push their definitions to a
superfluous accuracy. They have truth on their side, perhaps, but it
is of no practical advantage. Those, I mean, who say that no one
but the "wise" is "good."/Granted, by all means. But the "wisdom"
they mean is one to which no mortal ever yet attained. We must
concern ourselves with the facts of everyday life as we find it not
imaginary and ideal perfections. Even Gaius Fannius, Manius
Curius, and Tiberius Coruncanius, whom our ancestors decided to
be "wise," I could never declare to be so according to their standard.
Let them, then, keep this word "wisdom" to themselves. Everybody
is irritated by it; no one understands what it means. Let them but
grant that the men I mentioned were "good." No, they won't do that
either. No one but the "wise" can be allowed that title, say they.
Well, then, let us dismiss them and manage as best we may with our
own poor mother wit, as the phrase is.

We mean then by the "good" those whose actions and lives leave
no question as to their honour, purity, equity, and liberality; who

1 6 CICERO

are free from greed, lust, and violence; and who have the courage of
their convictions. The men I have just named may serve as examples.
Such men as these being generally accounted "good," let us agree
to call them so, on the ground that to the best of human ability they
follow nature as the most perfect guide to a good life.

Now this truth seems clear to me, that nature has so formed us
that a certain tie unites us all, but that this tie becomes stronger
from proximity. So it is that fellow-citizens are preferred in our
affections to foreigners, relations to strangers; for in their case Nature
herself has caused a kind of friendship to exist, though it is one
which lacks some of the elements of permanence. Friendship excels
relationship in this, that whereas you may eliminate affection from
relationship, you cannot do so from friendship^Without it relation-
ship still exists in name, friendship does not,/'! ou may best under-
stand this friendship by considering that, wnereas the merely natural
ties uniting the human race are indefinite, this one is so concentrated,
and confined to so narrow a sphere, that affection is ever shared by
two persons only, or at most by a few.

6. Now friendship may be thus defined: a complete accord on all
subjects human and divine, joined with mutual good will and
affection. And with the exception of wisdom, I am inclined to think
nothing better than this has been given to man by the immortal gods.
There are people who give the palm to riches or to good health,
or to power and office, many even to sensual pleasures. This last is
the ideal of brute beasts; and of the others we may say that they are
frail and uncertain, and depend less on our own prudence than on the
caprice of fortune. Then there are those who find the "chief good"
in virtue. Well, that is a noble doctrine. But the very virtue they
talk of is the parent and preserver of friendship, and without it
friendship cannot possibly exist.

Let us, I repeat, use the word virtue in the ordinary acceptation and
meaning of the term, and do not let us define it in high-flown lan-
guage. Let us account as good the persons usually considered so, such
as Paulus, Cato, Gallus, Scipio, and Philus. Such men as these are
good enough for everyday life; and we need not trouble ourselves
about those ideal characters which are nowhere to be met with.

Well, between men like these the advantages of friendship are

ON FRIENDSHIP 17

almost more than I can say. To begin with, how can life be worth
living, to use the words of Ennius, which lacks that repose which is to
be found in the mutual good will of a friend? What can be more
delightful than to have some one to whom you can say everything
with the same absolute confidence as to yourself? Is not prosperity
robbed of half its value if you have no one to share your joy? On
the other hand, misfortunes would be hard to bear if there were not
some one to feel them even more acutely than yourselfyln a word,
other objects of ambition serve for particular ends riches for use,
power for securing homage, office for reputation, pleasure for enjoy-
ment, health for freedom from pain and the full use of the functions
of the body. But friendship embraces innumerable advantages. Turn
which way you please, you will find it at hand. It is everywhere; and
yet never out of place, never unwelcome. Fire and water themselves,
to use a common expression, are not of more universal use than
friendship. I am not now speaking of the common or modified
form of it, though even that is a source of pleasure and profit, but of
that true and complete friendship which existed between the select
few who are known to fame. Such friendship enhances prosperity,
and relieves adversity of its burden by halving and sharing it.

7. And great and numerous as are the blessings of friendship, this
certainly is the sovereign one, that it gives us bright hopes for the
future and forbids weakness and despair. In the face of a true friend
a man sees as it were a second self. So that where his friend is he is ;
if his friend be rich, he is not poor; though he be weak, his friend's
strength is his; and in his friend's life he enjoys a second life after
his own is finished. This last is perhaps the most difficult to conceive.
But such is the effect of the respect, the loving remembrance, and
the regret of friends which follow us to the grave. While they take
the sting out of death, they add a glory to the life of the survivors.
Nay, if you eliminate from nature the tie of affection, there will be
an end of house and city, nor will so much as the cultivation of the
soil be left. I^ypu don't see the virtue of friendship and harmony,
you may learn it by observing the effects of quarrels and feuds. Was
any family ever so well established, any State so firmly settled, as to
be beyond the reach of utter destruction from animosities and fac-
tions? This may teach you the immense advantage of friendship.

I 8 CICERO

They say that a certain philosopher of Agrigentum, in a Greek
poem, pronounced with the authority of an oracle the doctrine that
whatever in nature and the universe was unchangeable was so in
virtue of the binding force of friendship; whatever was changeable
was so by the solvent power of discord. And indeed this is a truth
which everybody understands and practically attests by experience.
For if any marked instance of loyal friendship in confronting or
sharing danger comes to light, every one applauds it to the echo.
What cheers there were, for instance, all over the theatre at a passage
in the new play of my friend and guest Pacuvius; where, the king
not knowing which of the two was Orestes, Pylades declared himself
to be Orestes, that he might die in his stead, while the real Orestes
kept on asserting that it was he. The audience rose en masse and
clapped their hands. And this was at an incident in fiction: what
would they have done, must we suppose, if it had been in real life?
You can easily see what a natural feeling it is, when men who would
not have had the resolution to act thus themselves, shewed how right
they thought it in another.

I don't think I have any more to say about friendship. If there
is any more, and I have no doubt there is much, you must, if
you care to do so, consult those who profess to discuss such
matters.

Fannius. We would rather apply to you. Yet I have often con-
sulted such persons, and have heard what they had to say with a cer-
tain satisfaction. But in your discourse one somehow feels that there
is a different strain.

Sccevola. You would have said that still more, Fannius, if you
had been present the other day in Scipio's pleasure-grounds when
we had the discussion about the State. How splendidly he stood up
for justice against Philus's elaborate speech!

Fannius. Ah! it was naturally easy for the justest of men to stand
up for justice.

Sccevola. Well, then, what about friendship ? Who could discourse
on it more easily than the man whose chief glory is a friendship
maintained with the most absolute fidelity, constancy, and integrity?

8. Lcelius. Now you are really using force. It makes no difference
what kind of force you use: force it is. For it is neither easy nor

ON FRIENDSHIP 19

right to refuse a wish of my sons-in-law, particularly when the wish
is a creditable one in itself.

Well, then, it has very often occurred to me when thinking about
friendship, that the chief point to be considered was this: is it weak-
ness and want of means that make friendship desired ? I mean, is its
object an interchange of good offices, so that each may give that in
which he is strong, and receive that in which he is weakP^Or is it
not rather true that, although this is an advantage naturally belong-
ing to friendship, yet its original cause is quite other, prior in time,
more noble in character, and springing more directly from our nature
itself? The Latin word for friendship amicitia is derived from
that for love amor; and love is certainly the prime mover in con-
tracting mutual affection. For as to material advantages, it often
happens that those are obtained even by men who are courted by a
mere show of friendship and treated with respect from interested
motives. But friendship by its nature admits of no feigning, no pre-
tence: as far as it goes it is both genuine and spontaneous. /Therefore
I gather that friendship springs from a natural impulse ratnelHhan a
wish for help: from an inclination of the heart, combined with a
certain instinctive feeling of love, rather than from a deliberate
calculation of the material advantage it was likely to confer. 'The
strength of this feeling you may notice in certain animals. They show
such love to their offspring for a certain period, and are so beloved
by them, that they clearly have a share in this natural, instinctive
affection. But of course it is more evident in the case of man: first,
in the natural affection between children and their parents, an
affection which only shocking wickedness can sunder; and next,
when the passion of love has attained to a like strength on our
finding, that is, some one person with whose character and nature we
are in full sympathy, because we think that we perceive in him what
I may call the beacon-light of virtue, For nothing inspires love,
nothing conciliates affection, like virtue. Why, in a certain sense we
may be said to feel affection even for men we have never seen, owing
to their honesty and virtue. Who, for instance, fails to dwell on the
memory of Gaius Fabricius and Manius Curius with some affection
and warmth of feeling, though he has never seen them? Or who
but loathes Tarquinius Superbus, Spurius Cassius, Spurius Maelius'

20 CICERO

We have fought for empire in Italy with two great generals, Pyrrhus
and Hannibal. For the former, owing to his probity, we entertain
no great feelings of enmity: the latter, owing to his cruelty, our coun-
try has detested and always will detest.

9. Now, if the attraction of probity is so great that we can love it
not only in those whom we have never seen, but, what is more,
actually in an enemy, we need not be surprised if men's affections are
roused when they fancy that they have seen virtue and goodness
in those with whom a close intimacy is possible. I do not deny
that affection is strengthened by the actual receipt of benefits, as well
as by the perception of a wish to render service, combined with a
closer intercourse. When these are added to the original impulse
of the heart, to which I have alluded, a quite surprising warmth of
feeling springs up./And if any one thinks that this comes from a
sense of weakness, that each may have some one to help him to
his particular need, all I can say is that, when he maintains it to be
born of want and poverty, he allows to friendship an origin very
base, and a pedigree, if I may be allowed the expression, far from
noble. If this had been the case, a man's inclination to friendship
would be exactly in proportion to his low opiStoa of his own re-
sources. Whereas the truth is quite the other wa'y^JBor when a man's
confidence in himself is greatest, when he is so fortified by virtue and
wisdom as to want nothing and to feel absolutely self-dependent, it is
then that he is most conspicuous for seeking out and keeping up
friendships. Did Africanus, for example, want anything of me?
Not the least in the world! Neither did I of him. In my case it was
an admiration of his virtue, in his an opinion, maybe, which he
entertained of my character, that caused our affection. Closer inti-
macy added to the warmth of our feelings. But though many great
material advantages did endu^they were not the source from
which our affection proceedeo&For as we are not beneficent and
liberal with any view of extorting gratitude, and do not regard an act
of kindness as an investment, but follow a natural inclination to
liberality; so we look on friendship as worth trying for, not because
we are attracted to it by the expectation of ulterior gain, but in the
conviction that what it has to give us is from first to last included
in the feeling itself.

ON FRIENDSHIP 21

Far different is the view of those who, like brute beasts, refer every-
thing to sensual pleasure. And no wonder. /Men who have degraded
all their powers of thought to an object so mean and contemptible
can of course raise their eyes to nothing lofty, to nothing grand and
divine. Such persons indeed let us leave out of the present question.
And let us accept the doctrine that the sensation of love and the
warmth of inclination have their origin in a spontaneous feeling
which arises directly the presence of probity is indicated. When once
men have conceived the inclination, they of course try to attach
themselves to the object of it, and move themselves nearer and nearer
to him. Their aim is that they may be on the same footing and the
same level in regard to affection, and be more inclined to do a good
service than to ask a return, and that there should be this noble
rivalry between them. Thus both truths will be established. We
shall get the most important material advantages from friendship;
and its origin from a natural impulse rather than from a sense of
need will be at once more dignified and more in accordance with
fact. For if it were true that its material advantages cemented
friendship, it would be equally true that any change in them would
dissolve it. But nature being incapable of change, it follows that
genuine friendships are eternal.

So much for the origin of friendship. But perhaps you would not
care to hear any more.

Fannius. Nay, pray go on; let us have the rest, Laelius. I take
on myself to speak for my friend here as his senior.

Sccevola. Quite right! Therefore, pray let us hear.

10. L&lius. Well, then, my good friends, listen to some conversa-
tions about friendship which very frequently passed between Scipio
and myself. I must begin by telling you, however, that he used to
say that the most difficult thing in the world was for a friendship to
remain unimpaired to the end of life. So many things might inter-
vene: conflicting interests; differences of opinion in politics; fre-
quent changes in character, owing sometimes to misfortunes, some-
times to advancing years. He used to illustrate these facts from the
analogy of boyhood, since the warmest affections between boys are
often laid aside with the boyish toga; and even if they did manage
to keep them up to adolescence, they were sometimes broken by a

22 CICERO

rivalry in courtship, or for some other advantage to which their
mutual claims were not compatible. Even if the friendship was
prolonged beyond that time, yet it frequently received a rude shock
should the two happen to be competitors for office. For while the
most fatal blow to friendship in the majority of cases was the lust
of gold, in the case of the best men it was a rivalry for office and
reputation, by which it had often happened that the most violent
enmity had arisen between the closest friends.

Again, wide breaches and, for the most part, justifiable ones were
caused by an immoral request being made of friends, to pander to
a man's unholy desires or to assist him in inflicting a wrong. A
refusal, though perfectly right, is attacked by those to whom they
refuse compliance as a violation of the laws of friendship. Now the
people who have no scruples as to the requests they make to their
friends, thereby allow that they are ready to have no scruples as to
what they will do for their friends; and it is the recriminations of
such people which commonly not only quench friendships, but give
rise to lasting enmities. "In fact," he used to say, "these fatalities
overhang friendship in such numbers that it requires not only wis-
dom but good luck also to escape them all."

ii. With these premises, then, let us first, if you please, examine
the question how far ought personal feeling to go in friendship?
For instance: suppose Coriolanus to have had friends, ought they
to have joined him in invading his country? Again, in the case of
Vecellinus or Spurius Madius, ought their iaends to have assisted
them in their attempt to establish a tyranny .^Take two instances of
either line of conduct. When Tiberius Gracchus attempted his
revolutionary measures he was deserted, as we saw, by Quintus
Tubero and the friends of his own standing. On the other hand,
a friend of your own family, Scaevola, Gaius Blossius of Cumse,
took a different course. I was acting as assessor to the consuls
Lamas and Rupilius to try the conspirators, and Blossius pleaded
for my pardon on the ground that his regard for Tiberius Gracchus
had been so high that he looked upon his wishes as law. "Even if he
had wished you to set fire to the Capitol?" said I. "That is a thing,"
he replied, "that he never would have wished." "Ah, but if he had
wished it?" said I. "I would have obeyed." The wickedness of such

ON FRIENDSHIP 23

a speech needs no comment. And in point of fact he was as good and
better than his word; for he did not wait for orders in the audacious
proceedings of Tiberius Gracchus, but was the head and front of
them, and was a leader rather than an abettor of his madness.
The result of his infatuation was that he fled to Asia, terrified by the
special commission appointed to try him, joined the enemies of his
country, and paid a penalty to the republic as heavy as it was
deserved. I conclude, then, that the plea of having acted in the
interests of a friend is not a valid excuse for a wrong action t For,
seeing that a belief in a man's virtue is the original cause of friend-
ship, friendship can hardly remain if virtue be abandoned. But if
we decide it to be right to grant our friends whatever they wish,
and to ask them for whatever we wish, perfect wisdom must be
assumed on both sides if no mischief is to happen. But we cannot
assume this perfect wisdom; for we are speaking only of such friends
as are ordinarily to be met with, whether we have actually seen
them^or have been told about them men, that is to say, of everyday
life. /I must quote some examples of such persons, taking care to
select such as approach nearest to our standard of wisdom. We
read, for instance, that Papus ^Emilius was a close friend of Gaius
Luscinus. History tells us that they were twice consuls together,
and colleagues in the censorship. Again, it is on record that Manius
Curius and Tiberius Coruncanius were on the most intimate terms
with them and with each other. /Now, we cannot even suspect that
any one of these men ever asked of his friend anything that militated
against his honour or his oath or the interests of the republic. In
the case of such men as these there is no point in saying that one of
them would not have obtained such a request if he had made it;
<ror they were men of the most scrupulous piety, and the making
of such a request would involve a breach of religious obligation no
less than the granting it. However, it is quite true that Gaius Carbo
and Gaius Cato did follow Tiberius Gracchus; and though his
brother Gaius Gracchus did not do so at the time, he is now the most
eager of them all.

12. We may then lay down this rule of friendship neither as\ nor
consent to do what is wrong. For the plea "for friendship's sake"
is a discreditable one, and not to be admitted for a moment. This rule

24 CICERO

holds good for all wrong-doing, but more especially in such as
involves disloyalty to the republics/For things have come to such a
point with us, my dear Fannius and Scaevola, that we are bound to
look somewhat far ahead to what is likely to happen to the republic.
The constitution, as known to our ancestors, has already swerved
somewhat from the regular course and the lines marked out for it.
Tiberius Gracchus made an attempt to obtain the power of a king,
or, I might rather say, enjoyed that power for a few months. Had
the Roman people ever heard or seen the like before? What the
friends and connexions that followed him, even after his death,
have succeeded in doing in the case of Publius Scipio I cannot
describe without tears. /As for Carbo, thanks to the punishment
recently inflicted on Tiberius Gracchus, we have by hook or by
crook managed to hold out against his attacks. But what to expect
of the tribuneship of Gaius Gracchus I do not like to forecast* One
thing leads to another; and once set going, the downward course
proceeds with ever-increasing velocity) /There is the case of the
ballot: what a blow was inflicted first by the lex Gabinia, and two
years afterwards by the lex Cassia! I seem already to see the people
estranged from the Senate, and the most important affairs at the
mercy of the multitude.yFor you may be sure that more people
will learn how to set such things in motion than how to stop them.
What is the point of these remarks? This: no one ever makes any
attempt of this sort without friends to help him. We must therefore
impress upon good men that, should they become inevitably involved
in friendships with men of this kind, they ought not to consider
themselves under any obligation to stand by friends who are disloyal
to the republic. Bad men must have the fear of punishment before
their eyes: a punishment not less severe for those who follow than
for those who lead others to crime. Who was more famous and
powerful in Greece than Themistocles ? At the head of the army
in the Persian war he had freed Greece; he owed his exile to personal
envy: but he did not submit to the wrong done him by his ungrate-
ful country as he ought to have done. He acted as Coriolanus had
acted among us twenty years before. But no one was found to help
them in their attacks upon their fatherland. Both of them accord-
ingly committed suicide.

ON FRIENDSHIP 25

We conclude, then, not only that no such confederation of evilly
disposed men must be allowed to shelter itself under the plea of
friendship, but that, on the contrary, it must be visited with the
severest punishment, lest the idea should prevail that fidelity to a
friend justifies even making/ war upon one's country. And this is a
case which I am inclined to think, considering how things are
beginning to go, will sooner or later arise. And I care quite as much
what the state of the constitution will be after my death as what it is
now.

13. Let this, then, be laid down as the first law of friendship, that
we should asf^ from friends, and do for friends, only what is good.
But do not let us wait to be asked either: let there be ever an eager
readiness, and an absence of hesitation. Let us have the courage
to give advice with candour. In friendship, let the influence of
friends who give good advice be paramount; and let this influence
be used to enforce advice not only in plain-spoken terms, but
sometimes, if the case demands it, with sharpness; and when so used,
let it be obeyed.

I give you these rules because I believe that some wonderful
opinions are entertained by certain persons who have, I am told, a
reputation for wisdom in Greece. There is nothing in the world, by
the way, beyond the reach of their sophistry. Well, some of them
teach that we should avoid very close friendships, for fear that one
man should have to endure the anxieties of several. Each man, say
they, has enough and to spare on his own hands; it is too bad to be
involved in the cares of other people. The wisest course is to hold
the reins of friendship as loose as possible; you can then tighten or
slacken them at your will. For the first condition of a happy life is
freedom from care, which no one's mind can enjoy if it has to travail,
so to speak, for others besides itself. Another sect, I am told, gives
vent to opinions still less generous. I briefly touched on this subject
just now. They affirm that friendships should be sought solely for
the sake of the assistance they give, and not at all from motives of
feeling and affection; and that therefore j ust in proportion as a man's
power and means of support are lowest, he is most eager to gain
friendships: thence it comes that weak women seek the support of
friendship more than men, the poor more than the rich, the unfor-

26 CICERO

tunate rather than those esteemed prosperous. What noble philoso-
phy! You might just as well take the sun out of the sky as friendship
from life; for the immortal gods have given us nothing better or
more delightful.

But let us examine the two doctrines. What is the value of this
"freedom from care"? It is very tempting at first sight, but in
practice it has in many cases to be put on one side. For there is no
business and no course of action demanded from us by our honour
which you can consistently decline, or lay aside when begun, from a
mere wish to escape from anxiety. Nay, if we wish to avoid anxiety
we must avoid virtue itself, which necessarily involves some anxious
thoughts in showing its loathing and abhorrence for the qualities
which are opposite to itself as kindness for ill nature, self-control
for licentiousness, courage for cowardice. Thus you may notice
that it is the just who are most pained at injustice, the brave at
cowardly actions, the temperate at depravity. It is then characteristic
of a rightly ordered mind to be pleased at what is good and grieved
at the reverse. Seeing then that the wise are not exempt from the
heart-ache (which must be the case unless we suppose all human
nature rooted out of their hearts), why should we banish friendship
from our lives, for fear of being involved by it in some amount of
distress? If you take away emotion, what difference remains I
don't say between a man and a beast, but between a man and a stone
or a log of wood, or anything else of that kind ?

Neither should we give any weight to the doctrine that virtue is
something rigid and unyielding as iron. In point of fact it is in
regard to friendship, as in so many other things, so supple and
sensitive that it expands, so to speak, at a friend's good fortune, con-
tracts at his misfortunes. We conclude then that mental pain which
we must often encounter on a friend's account is not of sufficient
consequence to banish friendship from our life, any more than it
is true that the cardinal virtues are to be dispensed with because they
involve certain anxieties and distresses.

14. Let me repeat then, "the clear indication of virtue, to which
a mind of like character is naturally attracted, is the beginning of
friendship." When that is the case the rise of affection is a necessity.
For what can be more irrational than to take delight in many objects

ON FRIENDSHIP 27

incapable of response, such as office, fame, splendid buildings, and
personal decoration, and yet to take little or none in a sentient being
endowed with virtue, which has the faculty of loving or, if I may
use the expression, loving back ? For nothing is really more delight-
ful than a return of affection, and the mutual interchange of kind
feeling and good offices. And if we add, as we may fairly do, that
nothing so powerfully attracts and draws one thing to itself as
likeness does to friendship, it will at once be admitted to be true that
the good love the good and attach them to themselves as though they
were united by blood and nature. For nothing can be more eager,
or rather greedy, for what is like itself than nature. So, my dear
Fannius and Scaevola, we may look upon this as an established fact,
that between good men there is, as it were of necessity, a kindly
feeling, which is the source of friendship ordained by nature. But
this same kindliness affects the many also. For that is no unsympa-
thetic or selfish or exclusive virtue, which protects even whole nations
and consults their best interests. And that certainly it would not
have done had it disdained all affection for the common herd.

Again, the believers in the "interest" theory appear to me to destroy
the most attractive link in the chain of friendship. For it is not so
much what one gets by a friend that gives one pleasure, as the
warmth of his feeling; and we only care for a friend's service if it
has been prompted by affection. And so far from its being true that
lack of means is a motive for seeking friendship, it is usually those
who, being most richly endowed with wealth and means, and above
all with virtue (which, after all, is a man's best support), are least
in need of another, that are most open-handed and beneficent. Indeed
I am inclined to think that friends ought at times to be in want of
something. For instance, what scope would my affections have had
if Scipio had never wanted my advice or co-operation at home or
abroad ? It is not friendship, then, that follows material advantage,
but material advantage friendship.

15. We must not therefore listen to these superfine gentlemen
when they talk of friendship, which they know neither in theory
nor in practice. For who, in heaven's name, would choose a life of the
greatest wealth and abundance on condition of neither loving or
being beloved by any creature? That is the sort of life tyrants endure.

28 CICERO

They, of course, can count on no fidelity, no affection, no security
for the good will of any one. For them all is suspicion and anxiety ;
for them their is no possibility of friendship. Who can love one
whom he fears, or by whom he knows that he is feared? Yet such
men have a show of friendship offered them, but it is only a fair-
weather show. If it ever happen that they fall, as it generally does,
they will at once understand how friendless they are. So they say
Tarquin observed in his exile that he never knew which of his
friends were real and which sham, until he had ceased to be able to
repay either. Though what surprises me is that a man of his proud
and overbearing character should have a friend at all. And as it was
his character that prevented his having genuine friends, so it often
happens in the case of men of unusually great means their very
wealth forbids faithful friendships. For not only is Fortune blind
herself; but she generally makes those blind also who enjoy her
favours. They are carried, so to speak, beyond themselves with self-
conceit and self-will; nor can anything be more perfectly intolerable
than a successful fool. You may often see it. Men who before had
pleasant manners enough undergo a complete change on attaining
power of office. They despise their old friends: devote themselves
to new.

Now, can anything be more foolish than that men who have all
the opportunities which prosperity, wealth, and great means can
bestow, should secure all else which money can buy horses, servants,
splendid upholstering, and costly plate but do not secure friends,
who are, if I may use the expression, the most valuable and beautiful
furniture of life ? And yet, when they acquire the former, they know
not who will enjoy them, nor for whom they may be taking all this
trouble; for they will one and all eventually belong to the strongest:
while each man has a stable and inalienable ownership in his friend-
ships. And even if those possessions, which are, in a manner, the gifts
of fortune, do prove permanent, life can never be anything but joyless
which is without the consolations and companionship of friends.

1 6. To turn to another branch of our subject: We must now
endeavour to ascertain what limits are to be observed in friendship
what is the boundary-line, so to speak, beyond which our affection
is not to go. On this point I notice three opinions, with none of

ON FRIENDSHIP 29

which I agree. One is that we should love our friend just as much as
we love ourselves, and no more; another, that our affection to friends
should exactly correspond and equal theirs to us; a third, that a man
should be valued at exactly the same rate as he values himself. To not
one of these opinions do I assent. The first, which holds that our
regard for ourselves is to be the measure of our regard for our
friend, is not true; for how many things there are which we would
never have done for our own sakes, but do for the sake of a friend!
We submit to make requests from unworthy people, to descend
even to supplication; to be sharper in invective, more violent in
attack. Such actions are not creditable in our own interests, but
highly so in those of our friends. There are many advantages too
which men of upright character voluntarily forgo, or of which they
are content to be deprived, that their friends may enjoy them rather
than themselves.

The second doctrine is that which limits friendship to an exact
equality in mutual good offices and good feelings. But such a view
reduces friendship to a question of figures in a spirit far too narrow
and illiberal, as though the object were to have an exact balance in a
debtor and creditor account. True friendship appears to me to be
something richer and more generous than that comes to; and not to
be so narrowly on its guard against giving more than it receives.
In such a matter we must not be always afraid of something being
wasted or running over in our measure, or of more than is justly due
being devoted to our friendship.

But the last limit proposed is the worst, namely, that a friend's
estimate of himself is to be the measure of our estimate of him. It
often happens that a man has too humble an idea of himself, or takes
too despairing a view of his chance of bettering his fortune. In such
a case a friend ought not to take the view of him which he takes of
himself. Rather he should do all he can to raise his drooping spirits,
and lead him to more cheerful hopes and thoughts.

We must then find some other limit. But I must first mention the
sentiment which used to call forth Scipio's severest criticism. He
often said that no one ever gave utterance to anything more diamet-
rically opposed to the spirit of friendship than the author of the
dictum, "You should love your friend with the consciousness that

3O CICERO

you may one day hate him." He could not be induced to believe
that it was rightfully attributed to Bias, who was counted as one of
the Seven Sages. It was the sentiment of some person with sinister
motives or selfish ambition, or who regarded everything as it affected
his own supremacy. How can a man be friends with another, if he
thinks it possible that he may be his enemy? Why, it will follow that
he must wish and desire his friend to commit as many mistakes as
possible, that he may have all the more handles against him; and,
conversely, that he must be annoyed, irritated, and jealous at the
right actions or good fortune of his friends. This maxim, then, let
it be whose it will, is the utter destruction of friendship. The true
rule is to take such care in the selection of our friends as never to
enter upon a friendship with a man whom we could under any
circumstances come to hate. And even if we are unlucky in our
choice, we must put up with it according to Scipio in preference
to making calculations as to a future breach.

17. The real limit to be observed in friendship is this: the characters
of two friends must be stainless. There must be complete harmony
of interests, purpose, and aims, without exception. Then if the case
arises of a friend's wish (not strictly right in itself) calling for sup-
port in a matter involving his life or reputation, we must make some
concession from the straight path on condition, that is to say, that
extreme disgrace is not the consequence. Something must be con-
ceded to friendship. And yet we must not be entirely careless of our
reputation, nor regard the good opinion of our fellow-citizens as a
weapon which we can afford to despise in conducting the business
of our life, however lowering it may be to tout for it by flattery and
smooth words. We must by no means abjure virtue, which secures
us affection.

But to return again to Scipio, the sole author of the discourse on
friendship: He used to complain that there was nothing on which
men bestowed so little pains: that every one could tell exactly how
many goats or sheep he had, but not how many friends; and while
they took pains in procuring the former, they were utterly careless
in selecting friends, and possessed no particular marks, so to speak,
or tokens by which they might judge of their suitability for friend-
ship. Now the qualities we ought to look out for in making our

ON FRIENDSHIP 3!

selection are firmness, stability, constancy. There is a plentiful lack
of men so endowed, and it is difficult to form a judgment without
testing. Now this testing can only be made during the actual
existence of the friendship; for friendship so often precedes the
formation of a judgment, and makes a previous test impossible.
If we are prudent then, we shall rein in our impulse to affection as
we do chariot horses. We make a preliminary trial of horses. So we
should of friendship; and should test our friends' characters by a
kind of tentative friendship. It may often happen that the untrust-
worthiness of certain men is completely displayed in a small money
matter; others who are proof against a small sum are detected if it be
large. But even if some are found who think it mean to prefer
money to friendship, where shall we look for those who put friend-
ship before office, civil or military promotions, and political power,
and who, when the choice lies between these things on the one side
and the claims of friendship on the other, do not give a strong
preference to the former? It is not in human nature to be indif-
ferent to political power; and if the price men have to pay for it is
the sacrifice of friendship, they think their treason will be thrown
into the shade by the magnitude of the reward. This is why true
friendship is very difficult to find among those who engage in politics
and the contest for office. Where can you find the man to prefer his
friend's advancement to his own? And to say nothing of that, think
how grievous and almost intolerable it is to most men to share
political disaster. You will scarcely find any one who can bring
himself to do that. And though what Ennius says is quite true,
"the hour of need shews the friend indeed," yet it is in these two
ways that most people betray their untrustworthiness and incon-
stancy, by looking down on friends when they are themselves
prosperous, or deserting them in their distress. A man, then, who
has shewn a firm, unshaken, and unvarying friendship in both these
contingencies we must reckon as one of a class the rarest in the
world, and all but superhuman.

1 8. Now what is the quality to look out for as a warrant for the
stability and permanence of friendship? It is loyalty. Nothing that
lacks this can be stable. We should also in making our selection
look out for simplicity, a social disposition, and a sympathetic nature,

32 CICERO

moved by what moves us. These all contribute to maintain loyalty.
You can never trust a character which is intricate and tortuous. Nor,
indeed, is it possible for one to be trustworthy and firm who is
unsympathetic by nature and unmoved by what affects ourselves.
We may add, that he must neither take pleasure in bringing accusa-
tions against us himself, nor believe them when they are brought. All
these contribute to form that constancy which I have been endeavour-
ing to describe. And the result is, what I started by saying, that
friendship is only possible between good men.

Now there are two characteristic features in his treatment of his
friends that a good (which may be regarded as equivalent to a wise)
man will always display. First, he will be entirely without any
make-believe or pretence of feeling; for the open display even of
dislike is more becoming to an ingenuous character than a studied
concealment of sentiment. Secondly, he will not only reject all
accusations brought against his friend by another, but he will not be
suspicious himself either, nor be always thinking that his friend
has acted improperly. Besides this, there should be a certain pleasant-
ness in word and manner which adds no little flavour to friendship.
A gloomy temper and unvarying gravity may be very impressive;
but friendship should be a little less unbending, more indulgent and
gracious, and more inclined to all kinds of good-fellowship and good
nature.

19. But here arises a question of some little difficulty. Are there
any occasions on which, assuming their worthiness, we should
prefer new to old friends, just as we prefer young to aged horses?
The answer admits of no doubt whatever. For there should be no
satiety in friendship, as there is in other things. The older the sweeter,
as in wines that keep well. And the proverb is a true one, "You must
eat many a peck of salt with a man to be thorough friends with him."
Novelty, indeed, has its advantage, which we must not despise.
There is always hope of fruit, as there is in healthy blades of corn.
But age too must have its proper position; and, in fact, the influence
of time and habit is very great. To recur to the illustration of the
horse which I have just now used: Every one likes ceteris paribus
to use the horse to which he has been accustomed, rather than one
that is untried and new. And it is not only in the case of a living

ON FRIENDSHIP 33

thing that this rule holds good, but in inanimate things also; for we
like places where we have lived the longest, even though they are
mountainous and covered with forest. But here is another golden
rule in friendship: put yourself on a level with your friend. For it
often happens that there are certain superiorities, as for example
Scipio's in what I may call our set. Now he never assumed any airs
of superiority over Philus, or Rupilius, or Mummius, or over friends
of a lower rank still. For instance, he always shewed a deference to
his brother Quintus Maximus because he was his senior, who, though
a man no doubt of eminent character, was by no means his equal.
He used also to wish that all his friends should be the better for
his support. This is an example we should all follow. If any of us
have any advantage in personal character, intellect, or fortune, we
should be ready to make our friends sharers and partners in it with
ourselves. For instance, if their parents are in humble circumstances,
if their relations are powerful neither in intellect nor means, we
should supply their deficiencies and promote their rank and dignity.

You know the legends of children brought up as servants in igno-
rance of their parentage and family. When they are recognised and
discovered to be the sons of gods or kings, they still retain their
affection for the shepherds whom they have for many years looked
upon as their parents. Much more ought this to be so in the case of
real and undoubted parents. For the advantages of genius and virtue,
and in short of every kind of superiority, are never realised to
their fullest extent until they are bestowed upon our nearest and
dearest.

20. But the converse must also be observed. For in friendship
and relationship, just as those who possess any superiority must put
themselves on an equal footing with those who are less fortunate, so
these latter must not be annoyed at being surpassed in genius, for-
tune, or rank. But most people of that sort are for ever either
grumbling at something, or harping on their claims; and especially if
they consider that they have services of their own to allege involving
zeal and friendship and some trouble to themselves. People who
are always bringing up their services are a nuisance. The recipient
ought to remember them; the performer should never mention them.
In the case of friends, then, as the superior are bound to descend, so

34 CICERO

are they bound in a certain sense to raise those below them. For
there are people who make their friendship disagreeable by imagin-
ing themselves undervalued. This generally happens only to those
who think that they deserve to be so; and they ought to be shewn
by deeds as well as by words the groundlessness of their opinion.
Now the measure of your benefits should be in the first place your
own power to bestow, and in the second place the capacity to bear
them on the part of him on whom you are bestowing affection and
help. For, however great your personal prestige may be, you cannot
raise all your friends to the highest offices of the State. For instance,
Scipio was able to make Publius Rupilius consul, but not his brother
Lucius. But granting that you can give any one anything you
choose, you must have a care that it does not prove to be beyond his
powers.

As a general rule, we must wait to make up our mind about
friendships till men's characters and years have arrived at their full
strength and development. People must not, for instance, regard as
fast friends all whom in their youthful enthusiasm for hunting or
football they liked for having the same tastes. By that rule, if it were
a mere question of time, no one would have such claims on our
affections as nurses and slave-tutors. Not that they are to be neg-
lected, but they stand on a different ground. It is only these mature
friendships that can be permanent. For difference of character leads
to difference of aims, and the result of such diversity is to estrange
friends. The sole reason, for instance, which prevents good men
from making friends with bad, or bad with good, is that the
divergence of their characters and aims is the greatest possible.

Another good rule in friendship is this: do not let an excessive
affection hinder the highest interests of your friends. This very
often happens. I will go again to the region of fable for an instance.
Neoptolemus could never have taken Troy if he had been willing to
listen to Lycomedes, who had brought him up, and with many
tears tried to prevent his going there. Again, it often happens that
important business makes it necessary to part from friends: the man
who tries to baulk it, because he thinks that he cannot endure the
separation, is of a weak and effeminate nature, and on that very
account makes but a poor friend. There are, of course, limits to what

ON FRIENDSHIP 35

you ought to expect from a friend and to what you should allow him
to demand of you. And these you must take into calculation in every
case.

21. Again, there is such a disaster, so to speak, as having to break
off friendship. And sometimes it is one we cannot avoid. For at
this point the stream of our discourse is leaving the intimacies of
the wise and touching on the friendship of ordinary people. It will
happen at times that an outbreak of vicious conduct affects either a
man's friends themselves or strangers, yet the discredit falls on the
friends. In such cases friendships should be allowed to die out
gradually by an intermission of intercourse. They should, as I have
been told that Cato used to say, rather be unstitched than torn in
twain; unless, indeed, the injurious conduct be of so violent and
outrageous a nature as to make an instant breach and separation the
only possible course consistent with honour and rectitude. Again, if
a change in character and aim takes place, as often happens, or if
party politics produces an alienation of feeling (I am now speaking,
as I said a short time ago, of ordinary friendships, not of those of the
wise), we shall have to be on our guard against appearing to embark
upon active enmity while we only mean to resign a friendship. For
there can be nothing more discreditable than to be at open war with
a man with whom you have been intimate. Scipio, as you are aware,
had abandoned his friendship for Quintus Pompeius on my account;
and again, from differences of opinion in politics, he became
estranged from my colleague Metellus. In both cases he acted with
dignity and moderation, shewing that he was offended indeed, but
without rancour.

Our first object, then, should be to prevent a breach; our second, to
secure that, if it does occur, our friendship should seem to have
died a natural rather than a violent death. Next, we should take care
that friendship is not converted into active hostility, from which flow
personal quarrels, abusive language, and angry recriminations. These
last, however, provided that they do not pass all reasonable limits of
forbearance, we ought to put up with, and, in compliment to an old
friendship, allow the party that inflicts the injury, not the one that
submits to it, to be in the wrong. Generally speaking, there is but
one way of securing and providing oneself against faults and incon-

36 CICERO

veniences of this sort not to be too hasty in bestowing our affection,
and not to bestow it at all on unworthy objects.

Now, by "worthy of friendship" I mean those who have in them-
selves the qualities which attract affection. This sort of man is rare;
and indeed all excellent things are rare; and nothing in the world is
so hard to find as a thing entirely and completely perfect of its kind.
But most people not only recognise nothing as good in our life unless
it is profitable, but look upon friends as so much stock, caring most
for those by whom they hope to make most profit. Accordingly they
never possess that most beautiful and most spontaneous friendship
which must be sought solely for itself without any ulterior object.
They fail also to learn from their own feelings the nature and the
strength of friendship. For every one loves himself, not for any
reward which such love may bring, but because he is dear to himself
independently of anything else. But unless this feeling is transferred
to another, what a real friend is will never be revealed; for he is, as
it were, a second self. But if we find these two instincts shewing
themselves in animals, whether of the air or the sea or the land,
whether wild or tame, first, a love of self, which in fact is born in
everything that lives alike; and, secondly, an eagerness to find and
attach themselves to other creatures of their own kind; and if this
natural action is accompanied by desire and by something resembling
human love, how much more must this be the case in man by the
law of his nature? For man not only loves himself, but seeks another
whose spirit he may so blend with his own as almost to make one
being of two.

22. But most people unreasonably, not to speak of modesty, want
such a friend as they are unable to be themselves, and expect from
their friends what they do not themselves give. The fair course is
first to be good yourself, and then to look out for another of like
character. It is between such that the stability in friendship of which
we have been talking can be secured; when, that is to say, men who
are united by affection learn, first of all, to rule those passions which
enslave others, and in the next place to take delight in fair and equit-
able conduct, to bear each other's burdens, never to ask each other
for anything inconsistent with virtue and rectitude, and not only to
serve and love but also to respect each other. I say "respect"; for if

4

ON FRIENDSHIP 37

respect is gone, friendship has lost its brightest jewel. And this shews
the mistake of those who imagine that friendship gives a privilege
to licentiousness and sin. Nature has given us friendship as the
handmaid of virtue, not as a partner in guilt: to the end that virtue,
being powerless when isolated to reach the highest objects, might
succeed in doing so in union and partnership with another. Those
who enjoy in the present, or have enjoyed in the past, or are destined
to enjoy in the future such a partnership as this, must be considered
to have secured the most excellent and auspicious combination for
reaching nature's highest good. This is the partnership, I say, which
combines moral rectitude, fame, peace of mind, serenity: all that
men think desirable because with them life is happy, but without
them cannot be so. This being our best and highest object, we must,
if we desire to attain it, devote ourselves to virtue; for without virtue
we can obtain neither friendship nor anything else desirable. In fact,
if virtue be neglected, those who imagine themselves to possess
friends will find out their error as soon as some grave disaster forces
them to make trial of them. Wherefore, I must again and again
repeat, you must satisfy your judgment before engaging your affec-
tions: not love first and judge afterwards. We suffer from careless-
ness in many of our undertakings: in none more than in selecting
and cultivating our friends. We put the cart before the horse, and
shut the stable door when the steed is stolen, in defiance of the old
proverb. For, having mutually involved ourselves in a long-standing
intimacy or by actual obligations, all on a sudden some cause of
offence arises and we break off our friendships in full career.

23. It is this that makes such carelessness in a matter of supreme
importance all the more worthy of blame. I say "supreme impor-
tance," because friendship is the one thing about the utility of which
everybody with one accord is agreed. That is not the case in regard
even to virtue itself; for many people speak slightingly of virtue as
though it were mere puffing and self-glorification. Nor is it the case
with riches. Many look down on riches, being content with a little
and taking pleasure in poor fare and dress. And as to the political
offices for which some have a burning desire how many entertain
such a contempt for them as to think nothing in the world more
empty and trivial!

38 CICERO

And so on with the rest; things desirable in the eyes of some are
regarded by very many as worthless. But of friendship all think alike
to a man, whether those who have devoted themselves to politics, or
those who delight in science and philosophy, or those who follow a
private way of life and care for nothing but their own business, or
those lastly who have given themselves body and soul to sensuality
they all think, I say, that without friendship life is no life, if they
want some part of it, at any rate, to be noble. For friendship, in one
way or another, penetrates into the lives of us all, and suffers no
career to be entirely free from its influence. Though a man be of
so churlish and unsociable a nature as to loathe and shun the com-
pany of mankind, as we are told was the case with a certain Timon
at Athens, yet even he cannot refrain from seeking some one in whose
hearing he may disgorge the venom of his bitter temper. We should
see this most clearly, if it were possible that some god should carry
us away from these haunts of men, and place us somewhere in
perfect solitude, and then should supply us in abundance with every-
thing necessary to our nature, and yet take from us entirely the
opportunity of looking upon a human being. Who could steel
himself to endure such a life? Who would not lose in his loneliness
the zest for all pleasures ? And indeed this is the point of the observa-
tion of, I think, Archytas of Tarentum. I have it third hand; men
who were my seniors told me that their seniors had told them. It
was this: "If a man could ascend to heaven and get a clear view of
the natural order of the universe, and the beauty of the heavenly
bodies, that wonderful spectacle would give him small pleasure,
though nothing could be conceived more delightful if he had but
had some one to whom to tell what he had seen." So true it is that
Nature abhors isolation, and ever leans upon something as a stay
and support; and this is found in its most pleasing form in our
closest friend.

24. But though Nature also declares by so many indications what
her wish and object and desire is, we yet in a manner turn a deaf
ear and will not hear her warnings. The intercourse between friends
is varied and complex, and it must often happen that causes of
suspicion and offence arise, which a wise man will sometimes avoid,
at other times remove, at others treat with indulgence. The one

ON FRIENDSHIP 39

possible cause of offence that must be faced is when the interests of
your friend and your own sincerity are at stake. For instance, it
often happens that friends need remonstrance and even reproof.
When these are administered in a kindly spirit they ought to be
taken in good part. But somehow or other there is truth in what my
friend Terence says in his Andria:

Compliance gets us friends, plain speaking hate.

Plain speaking is a cause of trouble, if the result of it is resentment,
which is poison of friendship; but compliance is really the cause of
much more trouble, because by indulging his faults it lets a friend
plunge into headlong ruin. But the man who is most to blame is he
who resents plain speaking and allows flattery to egg him on to his
ruin. On this point, then, from first to last there is need of delibera-
tion and care. If we remonstrate, it should be without bitterness; if
we reprove, there should be no word of insult. In the matter of
compliance (for I am glad to adopt Terence's word), though there
should be every courtesy, yet that base kind which assists a man in
vice should be far from us, for it is unworthy of a free-born man,
to say nothing of a friend. It is one thing to live with a tyrant,
another with a friend. But if a man's ears are so closed to plain
speaking that he cannot bear to hear the truth from a friend, we
may give him up in despair. This remark of Cato's, as so many of
his did, shews great acuteness: "There are people who owe more
to bitter enemies than to apparently pleasant friends: the former
often speak the truth, the latter never." Besides, it is a strange
paradox that the recipients of advice should feel no annoyance where
they ought to feel it, and yet feel so much where they ought not.
They are not at all vexed at having committed a fault, but very angry
at being reproved for it. On the contrary, they ought to be grieved
at the crime and glad of the correction.

25. Well, then, if it is true that to give and receive advice the
former with freedom and yet without bitterness, the latter with
patience and without irritation is peculiarly appropriate to genuine
friendship, it is no less true that there can be nothing more utterly
subversive of friendship than flattery, adulation, and base compliance.
I use as many terms as possible to brand this vice of light-minded,

40 CICERO

untrustworthy men, whose sole object in speaking is to please with-
out any regard to truth. In everything false pretence is bad, for it
suspends and vitiates our power of discerning the truth. But to
nothing is it so hostile as to friendship; for it destroys that frankness
without which friendship is an empty name. For the essence of
friendship being that two minds become as one, how can that ever
take place if the mind of each of the separate parties to it is not
single and uniform, but variable, changeable, and complex? Can
anything be so pliable, so wavering, as the mind of a man whose
attitude depends not only on another's feeling and wish, but on
his very looks and nods?

If one says "No," I answer "No"; if "Yes," I answer "Yes."
In fine, I've laid this task upon myself,
To echo all that's said

to quote my old friend Terence again. But he puts these words into
the mouth of a Gnatho. To admit such a man into one's intimacy
at all is a sign of folly. But there are many people like Gnatho, and
it is when they are superior either in position or fortune or reputation
that their flatteries become mischievous, the weight of their position
making up for the lightness of their character. But if we only take
reasonable care, it is as easy to separate and distinguish a genuine
from a specious friend as anything else that is coloured and artificial
from what is sincere and genuine. A public assembly, though com-
posed of men of the smallest possible culture, nevertheless will see
clearly the difference between a mere demagogue (that is, a flatterer
and untrustworthy citizen) and a man of principle, standing, and
solidity. It was by this kind of flattering language that Gaius Papirius
the other day endeavoured to tickle the ears of the assembled people,
when proposing his law to make the tribunes re-eligible. I spoke
against it. But I will leave the personal question. I prefer speaking of
Scipio. Good heavens! how impressive his speech was, what a
majesty there was in it! You would have pronounced him, without
hesitation, to be no mere henchman of the Roman people, but their
leader. However, you were there, and moreover have the speech in
your hands. The result was that a law meant to please the people
was by the people's votes rejected. Once more to refer to myself, you

ON FRIENDSHIP 4!

remember how apparently popular was the law proposed by Gaius
Licinius Crassus "about the election to the College of Priests" in the
consulship of Quintus Maximus, Scipio's brother, and Lucius
Mancinus. For the power of filling up their own vacancies on the
part of the colleges was by this proposal to be transferred to the
people. It was this man, by the way, who began the practice of
turning towards the forum when addressing the people. In spite of
this, however, upon my speaking on the conservative side, religion
gained an easy victory over his plausible speech. This took place in
my praetorship, five years before I was elected consul, which shows
that the cause was successfully maintained more by the merits of
the case than by the prestige of the highest office.

26. Now, if on a stage, such as a public assembly essentially is,
where there is the amplest room for fiction and half-truths, truth
nevertheless prevails if it be but fairly laid open and brought into
the light of day, what ought to happen in the case of friendship,
which rests entirely on truthfulness? Friendship, in which, unless
you both see and shew an open breast, to use a common expression,
you can neither trust nor be certain of anything no, not even of
mutual affection, since you cannot be sure of its sincerity. However,
this flattery, injurious as it is, can hurt no one but the man who
takes it in and likes it. And it follows that the man to open his
ears widest to flatterers is he who first flatters himself and is fondest
of himself. I grant you that Virtue naturally loves herself; for she
knows herself and perceives how worthy of love she is. But I am
not now speaking of absolute virtue, but of the belief men have that
they possess virtue. The fact is that fewer people are endowed with
virtue than wish to be thought to be so. It is such people that take
delight in flattery. When they are addressed in language expressly
adapted to flatter their vanity, they look upon such empty persiflage
as a testimony to the truth of their own praises. It is not then
properly friendship at all when the one will not listen to the truth,
and the other is prepared to lie. Nor would the servility of parasites
in comedy have seemed humorous to us had there been no such
things as braggart captains. "Is Thais really much obliged to me?"
It would have been quite enough to answer "Much," but he must
needs say "Immensely." Your servile flatterer always exaggerates

42 CICERO

what his victim wishes to be put strongly. Wherefore, though it is
with those who catch at and invite it that this flattering falsehood
is especially powerful, yet men even of solider and steadier character
must be warned to be on the watch against being taken in by
cunningly disguised flattery. An open flatterer any one can detect,
unless he is an absolute fool: the covert insinuation of the cunning
and the sly is what we have to be studiously on our guard against.
His detection is not by any means the easiest thing in the world, for
he often covers his servility under the guise of contradiction, and
flatters by pretending to dispute, and then at last giving in and
allowing himself to be beaten, that the person hoodwinked may
think himself to have been the clearer-sighted. Now what can be
more degrading than to be thus hoodwinked ? You must be on your
guard against this happening to you, like the man in the Heiress:

How have I been befooled! no drivelling dotards
On any stage were e'er so played upon.

For even on the stage we have no grosser representation of folly
than that of short-sighted and credulous old men. But somehow or
other I have strayed away from the friendship of the perfect, that is,
of the "wise" (meaning, of course, such "wisdom" as human nature
is capable of), to the subject of vulgar, unsubstantial friendships.
Let us then return to our original theme, and at length bring that,
too, to a conclusion.

27. Well, then, Fannius and Mucius, I repeat what I said before.
It is virtue, virtue, which both creates and preserves friendship. On it
depends harmony of interest, permanence, fidelity. When Virtue
has reared her head and shewn the light of her countenance, and
seen and recognised the same light in another, she gravitates towards
it, and in her turn welcomes that which the other has to shew; and
from it springs up a flame which you may call love or friendship
as you please. Both words are from the same root in Latin; and
love is just the cleaving to him whom you love without the prompt-
ing of need or any view to advantage though this latter blossoms
spontaneously on friendship, little as you may have looked for it.
It is with such warmth of feeling that I cherished Lucius Paulus,
Marcus Cato, Gaius Gallus, Publius Nasica, Tiberius Gracchus, my

ON FRIENDSHIP 43

dear Scipio's father-in-law. It shines with even greater warmth
when men are of the same age, as in the case of Scipio and Lucius
Furius, Publius Rupilius, Spurius Mummius, and myself. En re-
vanche, in my old age I find comfort in the affection of young men,
as in the case of yourselves and Quintus Tubero: nay more, I delight
in the intimacy of such a very young man as Publius Rutilius and
Aulus Verginius. And since the law of our nature and of our life
is that a new generation is for ever springing up, the most desirable
thing is that along with your contemporaries, with whom you
started in the race, you may also reach what is to us the goal. But
in view of the instability and perishableness of mortal things, we
should be continually on the look-out for some to love and by whom
to be loved; for if we lose affection and kindliness from our life, we
lose all that gives it charm. For me, indeed, though torn away by a
sudden stroke, Scipio still lives and ever will live. For it was the
virtue of the man that I loved, and that has not suffered death. And
it is not my eyes only, because I had all my life a personal experience
of it, that never lose sight of it: it will shine to posterity also with
undimmed glory. No one will ever cherish a nobler ambition or a
loftier hope without thinking his memory and his image the best
to put before his eyes. I declare that of all the blessings which either
fortune or nature has bestowed upon me I know none to compare
with Scipio's friendship. In it I found sympathy in public, counsel
in private business; in it too a means of spending my leisure with
unalloyed delight. Never, to the best of my knowledge, did I offend
him even in the most trivial point; never did I hear a word from him
I could have wished unsaid. We had one house, one table, one style
of living; and not only were we together on foreign service, but
in our tours also and country sojourns. Why speak of our eagerness
to be ever gaining some knowledge, to be ever learning something,
on which we spent all our leisure hours far from the gaze of the
world ? If the recollection and memory of these things had perished
with the man, I could not possibly have endured the regret for one
so closely united with me in life and affection. But these things
have not perished; they are rather fed and strengthened by reflexion
and memory. Even supposing me to have been entirely bereft of
them, still my time of life of itself brings me no small consolation:

44 CICERO

for I cannot have much longer now to bear this regret; and every-
thing that is brief ought to be endurable, however severe.

This is all I had to say on friendship. One piece of advice on
parting. Make up your minds to this: Virtue (without which friend-
ship is impossible) is first; but next to it, and to it alone, the greatest
of all things is Friendship.

ON OLD AGE

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

i. And should my service, Titus, ease the weight
Of care that wrings your heart, and draw the sting
Which rankles there, what guerdon shall there be ?

FOR I may address you, Atticus, in the lines in which
Flamininus was addressed by the man

who, poor in wealth, was rich in honour's gold,
though I am well assured that you are not, as Flamininus was,
kept on the rack of care by night and day.

For I know how well-ordered and equable your mind is, and am
fully aware that it was not a surname alone which you brought
home with you from Athens, but its culture and good sense. And
yet I have an idea that you are at times stirred to the heart by the
same circumstances as myself. To console you for these is a more
serious matter, and must be put off to another time. For the present
I have resolved to dedicate to you an essay on Old Age. For from
the burden of impending or at least advancing age, common to us
both, I would do something to relieve us both : though as to yourself
I am fully aware that you support and will support it, as you do
everything else, with*- calmness and philosophy. But directly I re-
solved to write on old age, you at once occurred to me as deserving
a gift of which both of us might take advantage. To myself, indeed,
the composition of this book has been so delightful that it has not
only wiped away all the disagreeables of old age, but has even made
it luxurious and delightful too. Never, therefore, can philosophy be
praised as highly as it deserves, considering that its faithful disciple
is able to spend every period of his life with unruffled feelings.
However, on other subjects I have spoken at large, and shall often
speak again : this book which I herewith send you is on Old Age. I

45

46 CICERO

have put the whole discourse not, as Alisto of Cos did, in the mouth
of Tithonus for a mere fable would have lacked conviction but in
that of Marcus Cato when he was an old man, to give my essay
greater weight. I represent Ladius and Scipio at his house expressing
surprise at his carrying his years so lightly, and Cato answering them.
If he shall seem to shew somewhat more learning in this discourse
than he generally did in his own books, put it down to the Greek
literature of which it is known that he became an eager student in
his old age. But what need of more? Cato's own words will at
once explain all I feel about old age.

M. CATO. PUBLIUS CORNELIUS SCIPIO AFRICANUS (the younger).
GAIUS

2. Scipio. Many a time have I in conversation with my friend
Gaius Ladius here expressed my admiration, Marcus Cato, of the
eminent, nay perfect, wisdom displayed by you indeed at all points,
but above everything because I have noticed that old age never
seemed a burden to you, while to most old men it is so hateful that
they declare themselves under a weight heavier than ^Etna.

Cato. Your admiration is easily excited, it seems, my dear Scipio
and Ladius. Men, of course, who have no resources in themselves
for securing a good and happy life find every age burdensome. But
those who look for all happiness from within can never think
anything bad which Nature makes inevitable. In that category
before anything else comes old age, to which all wish to attain,
and at which all grumble when attained. Such is Folly's inconsistency
and unreasonableness! They say that it is stealing upon them faster
than they expected. In the first place, who compelled them to hug
an illusion? For in what respect did old age steal upon manhood
faster than manhood upon childhood? In the next place, in what
way would old age have been less disagreeable to them if they were
in their eight-hundredth year than in their eightieth? For their
past, however long, when once it was past, would have no consola-
tion for a stupid old age. Wherefore, if it is your wont to admire my
wisdom and I would that it were worthy of your good opinion and
of my own surname of Sapiens it really consists in the fact that I
follow Nature, the best of guides, as I would a god, and am loyal

ON OLD AGE 47

to her commands. It is not likely, if she has written the rest of the
play well, that she has been careless about the last act like some
idle poet. But after all some "last" was inevitable, just as to the
berries of a tree and the fruits of the earth there comes in the fulness
of time a period of decay and fall. A wise man will not make a
grievance of this. To rebel against Nature is not that to fight like
the giants with the gods ?

Latins. And yet, Cato, you will do us a very great favour (I ven-
ture to speak for Scipio as for myself) if since we all hope, or at
least wish, to become old men you would allow us to learn from you
in good time before it arrives, by what methods we may most easily
acquire the strength to support the burden of advancing age.

Cato. I will do so without doubt, Lselius, especially if, as you say,
it will be agreeable to you both.

Lcelius. We do wish very much, Cato, if it is no trouble to you,
to be allowed to see the nature of the bourne which you have reached
after completing a long journey, as it were, upon which we too are
bound to embark.

3. Cato. I will do the best I can, Laelius. It has often been my
fortune to hear the complaints of my contemporaries like will to
like, you know, according to the old proverb complaints to which
men like C. Salinator and Sp. Albinus, who were of consular rank
and about my time, used to give vent. They were, first, that they
had lost the pleasures of the senses, without which they did not
regard life as life at all; and, secondly, that they were neglected
by those from whom they had been used to receive attentions.
Such men appear to me to lay the blame on the wrong thing.
For if it had been the fault of old age, then these same mis-
fortunes would have befallen me and all other men of advanced
years. But I have known many of them who never said a word of
complaint against old age; for they were only too glad to be freed
from the bondage of passion, and were not at all looked down upon
by their friends. The fact is that the blame for all complaints of that
kind is to be charged to character, not to a particular time of life.
For old men who are reasonable and neither cross-grained nor
churlish find old age tolerable enough: whereas unreason and
churlishness cause uneasiness at every time of life.

40 CICERO

Lcelius. It is as you say, Cato. But perhaps some one may suggest
that it is your large means, wealth, and high position that make you
think old age tolerable: whereas such good fortune only falls to few.

Cato. There is something in that, Laelius, but by no means all.
For instance, the story is told of the answer of Themistocles in a
wrangle with a certain Seriphian, who asserted that he owed his
brilliant position to the reputation of his country, not to his own.
"If I had been a Seriphian," said he, "even I should never have been
famous, nor would you if you had been an Athenian." Something
like this may be said of old age. For the philosopher himself could
not find old age easy to bear in the depths of poverty, nor the fool
feel it anything but a burden though he were a millionaire. You
may be sure, my dear Scipio and Laelius, that the arms best adapted
to old age are culture and the active exercise of the virtues. For if
they have been maintained at every period if one has lived much
as well as long the harvest they produce is wonderful, not only
because they never fail us even in our last days (though that in itself
is supremely important), but also because the consciousness of a
well-spent life and the recollection of many virtuous actions are
exceedingly delightful.

4. Take the case of Q. Fabius Maximus, the man, I mean, who
recovered Tarentum. When I was a young man and he an old one,
I was as much attached to him as if he had been my contemporary.
For that great man's serious dignity was tempered by courteous
manners, nor had old age made any change in his character. True,
he was not exactly an old man when my devotion to him began, yet
he was nevertheless well on in life; for his first consulship fell in
the year after my birth. When quite a stripling I went with him in
his fourth consulship as a soldier in the ranks, on the expedition
against Capua, and in the fifth year after that against Tarentum.
Four years after that I was elected quaestor, holding office in the
consulship of Tuditanus and Cethegus, in which year, indeed, he as a
very old man spoke in favour of the Cincian law "on gifts and fees."

Now this man conducted wars with all the spirit of youth when
he was far advanced in life, and by his persistence gradually wearied
out Hannibal, when rioting in all the confidence of youth. How
brilliant are those lines of my friend Ennius on him!

ON OLD AGE 49

For us, down beaten by the storms of fate,
One man by wise delays restored the State.
Praise or dispraise moved not his constant mood,
True to his purpose, to his country's good!
Down ever-lengthening avenues of fame
Thus shines and shall shine still his glorious name.

Again, what vigilance, what profound skill did he shew in the
capture of Tarentum! It was indeed in my hearing that he made
the famous retort to Salinator, who had retreated into the citadel
after losing the town: "It was owing to me, Quintus Fabius, that
you retook Tarentum." "Quite so," he replied with a laugh; "for
had you not lost it, I should never have recovered it." Nor was he
less eminent in civil life than in war. In his second consulship,
though his colleague would not move in the matter, he resisted as
long as he could the proposal of the tribune C. Flaminius to divide
the territory of the Picenians and Gauls in free allotments in defiance
of a resolution of the Senate. Again, though he was an augur, he
ventured to say that whatever was done in the interests of the State
was done with the best possible auspices, that any laws proposed
against its interest were proposed against the auspices. I was cogni-
sant of much that was admirable in that great man, but nothing
struck me with greater astonishment than the way in which he bore
the death of his son a man of brilliant character and who had been
consul. His funeral speech over him is in wide circulation, and when
we read it, is there any philosopher of whom we do not think
meanly? Nor in truth was he only great in the light of day and in
the sight of his fellow-citizens; he was still more eminent in private
and at home. What a wealth of conversation! What weighty
maxims! What a wide acquaintance with ancient history! What an
accurate knowledge of the science of augury! For a Roman, too,
he had a great tincture of letters. He had a tenacious memory for
military history of every sort, whether of Roman or foreign wars.
And I used at that time to enjoy his conversation with a passionate
eagerness, as though I already divined, what actually turned out to
be the case, that when he died there would be no one to teach me
anything.
5. What then is the purpose of such a long disquisition on

5<D CICERO

Maximus ? It is because you now see that an old age like his cannoi
conscientiously be called unhappy. Yet it is after all true that every
body cannot be a Scipio or a Maximus, with stormings of cities
with battles by land and sea, with wars in which they themselve:
commanded, and with triumphs to recall. Besides this there is i
quiet, pure, and cultivated life which produces a calm and gentle
old age, such as we have been told Plato's was, who died at hi;
writing-desk in his eighty-first year; or like that of Isocrates, whc
says that he wrote the book called The Panegyric in his ninety-fourtl
year, and who lived for five years afterwards; while his mastei
Gorgias of Leontini completed a hundred and seven years withou
ever relaxing his diligence or giving up work. When some one askec
him why he consented to remain so long alive "I have no fault,'
said he, "to find with old age." That was a noble answer, anc
worthy of a scholar. For fools impute their own frailties and guil
to old age, contrary to the practice of Ennius, whom I mentionec
just now. In ths lines

Like some brave steed that oft before
The Olympic wreath of victory bore,
Now by the weight of years oppressed,
Forgets the race, and takes his rest

he compares his own old age to that of a high-spirited and successfu
race-horse. And him indeed you may very well remember. For th
present consuls Titus Flamininus and Manius Acilius were electee
in the nineteenth year after his death; and his death occurred in th
consulship of Caepio and Philippus, the latter consul for the secon<
time: in which year I, then sixty-six years old, spoke in favour o
the Voconian law in a voice that was still strong and with lung
still sound; while he, though seventy years old, supported tw<
burdens considered the heaviest of all poverty and old age in sue!
a way as to be all but fond of them.

The fact is that when I come to think it over, I find that ther
are four reasons for old age being thought unhappy: First, that i
withdraws us from active employments; second, that it enfeebles th
body; third, that it deprives us of nearly all physical pleasures
fourth, that it is the next step to death. Of each of these reasons, i
you will allow me, let us examine the force and justice separately.

ON OLD AGE 5!

6. OLD AGE WITHDRAWS US FROM ACTIVE EMPLOYMENTS. From which

of them ? Do you mean from those carried on by youth and bodily
strength? Are there then no old men's employments to be after all
conducted by the intellect, even when bodies are weak? So then
Q. Maximus did nothing; nor L. ^Emilius your father, Scipio, and
my excellent son's father-in-law! So with other old men the
Fabricii, the Curii and Coruncanii when they were supporting the
State by their advice and influence, they were doing nothing! To
old age Appius Claudius had the additional disadvantage of being
blind; yet it was he who, when the Senate was inclining towards a
peace with Pyrrhus and was for making a treaty, did not hesitate to
say what Ennius has embalmed in the verses:

Whither have swerved the souls so firm of yore?
Is sense grown senseless ? Can feet stand no more ?

And so on in a tone of the most passionate vehemence. You know
the poem, and the speech of Appius himself is extant. Now, he
delivered it seventeen years after his second consulship, there having
been an interval of ten years between the two consulships, and he
having been censor before his previous consulship. This will show
you that at the time of the war with Pyrrhus he was a very old man.
Yet this is the story handed down to us.

There is therefore nothing in the arguments of those who say that
old age takes no part in public business. They are like men who
would say that a steersman does nothing in sailing a ship, because,
while some of the crew are climbing the masts, others hurrying up
and down the gangways, others pumping out the bilge water, he
sits quietly in the stern holding the tiller. He does not do what
young men do; nevertheless he does what is much more important
and better. The great affairs of life are not performed by physical
strength, or activity, or nimbleness of body, but by deliberation,
character, expression of opinion. Of these old age is not only not
deprived, but, as a rule, has them in a greater degree. Unless by
any chance I, who as a soldier in the ranks, as military tribune, as
legate, and as consul have been employed in various kinds of war,
now appear to you to be idle because not actively engaged in war.
But I enjoin upon the Senate what is to be done, and how. Carthage

52 CICERO

has long been harbouring evil designs, and I accordingly proclairr
war against her in good time. I shall never cease to entertain fear:
about her till I hear of her having been levelled with the ground
The glory of doing that I pray that the immortal gods may reserve
for you, Scipio, so that you may complete the task begun by you;
grandfather, now dead more than thirty-two years ago; though al
years to come will keep that great man's memory green. He died ir
the year before my censorship, nine years after my consulship, havim
been returned consul for the second time in my own consulship. I:
then he had lived to his hundredth year, would he have regrettec
having lived to be old? For he would of course not have beer
practising rapid marches, nor dashing on a foe, nor hurling spear:
from a distance, nor using swords at close quarters but only counsel
reason, and senatorial eloquence. And if those qualities had noi
resided in us seniors, our ancestors would never have called theii
supreme council a Senate. At Sparta, indeed, those who hold the
highest magistracies are in accordance with the fact actually callec
"elders." But if you will take the trouble to read or listen to foreigi
history, you will find that the mightiest States have been brought int<
peril by young men, have been supported and restored by old. The
question occurs in the poet Naevius's Sport:

Pray, who are those who brought your State
With such despatch to meet its fate?

There is a long answer, but this is the chief point:

A crop of brand-new orators we grew,

And foolish, paltry lads who thought they knew.

For of course rashness is the note of youth, prudence of old age.

7. But, it is said, memory dwindles. No doubt, unless you keep il
in practice, or if you happen to be somewhat dull by nature. Themis-
tocles had the names of all his fellow-citizens by heart. Do you
imagine that in his old age he used to address Aristides as Ly
simachus? For my part, I know not only the present generation, bui
their fathers also, and their grandfathers. Nor have I any fear oi
losing my memory by reading tombstones, according to the vulgai
superstition. On the contrary, by reading them I renew my memor)

ON OLD AGE 53

of those who are dead and gone. Nor, in point of fact, have I ever
heard of any old man forgetting where he had hidden his money.
They remember everything that interests them: when to answer to
their bail, business appointments, who owes them money, and to
whom they owe it. What about lawyers, pontiffs, augurs, philoso-
phers, when old? What a multitude of things they remember! Old
men retain their intellects well enough, if only they keep their minds
active and fully employed. Nor is that the case only with men of
high position and great office: it applies equally to private life and
peaceful pursuits. Sophocles composed tragedies to extreme old
age; and being believed to neglect the care of his property owing to
his devotion to his art, his sons brought him into court to get a
judicial decision depriving him of the management of his property
on the ground of weak intellect just as in our law it is customary
to deprive a paterfamilias of the management of his property if he
is squandering it. Thereupon the old poet is said to have read to the
judges the play he had on hand and had just composed the CEdipus
Coloneus and to have asked them whether they thought that the
work of a man of weak intellect. After the reading he was acquitted
by the jury. Did old age then compel this man to become silent in
his particular art, or Homer, Hesiod, Simonides, or Isocrates and
Gorgias, whom I mentioned before, or the founders of schools of
philosophy, Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Xenocrates, or later Zeno
and Cleanthus, or Diogenes the Stoic, whom you too saw at Rome?
Is it not rather the case with all these that the active pursuit of study
only ended with life?

But, to pass over these sublime studies, I can name some rustic
Romans from the Sabine district, neighbours and friends of my own,
without whose presence farm work of importance is scarcely ever
performed whether sowing, or harvesting or storing crops. And
yet in other things this is less surprising; for no one is so old as to
think that he may not live a year. But they bestow their labour on
what they know does not affect them in any case:

He plants his trees to serve a race to come,

as our poet Statius says in his Comrades. Nor indeed would a
farmer, however old, hesitate to answer any one who asked him for

54 CICERO

whom he was planting: "For the immortal gods, whose will it was
that I should not merely receive these things from my ancestors,
but should also hand them on to the next generation."
8. That remark about the old man is better than the following:

If age brought nothing worse than this,
It were enough to mar our bliss,
That he who bides for many years
Sees much to shun and much for tears.

Yes, and perhaps much that gives him pleasure too. Besides, as to
subjects for tears, he often comes upon them in youth as well.
A still more questionable sentiment in the same Caecilius is:

No greater misery can of age be told

Than this: be sure, the young dislike the old.

Delight in them is nearer the mark than dislike. For just as old
men, if they are wise, take pleasure in the society of young men of
good parts, and as old age is rendered less dreary for those who
are courted and liked by the youth, so also do young men find
pleasure in the maxims of the old, by which they are drawn to the
pursuit of excellence. Nor do I perceive that you find my society
less pleasant than I do yours. But this is enough to show you how,
so far from being listless and sluggish, old age is even a busy time,
always doing and attempting something, of course of the same nature
as each man's taste had been in the previous part of his life. Nay,
do not some even add to their stock of learning? We see Solon, for
instance, boasting in his poems that he grows old "daily learning
something new." Or again in my own case, it was only when an old
man that I became acquainted with Greek literature, which in fact I
absorbed with such avidity in my yearning to quench, as it were,
a long-continued thirst that I became acquainted with the very
facts which you see me now using as precedents. When I heard
what Socrates had done about the lyre I should have liked for my
part to have done that too, for the ancients used to learn the lyre,
but, at any rate, I worked hard at literature.

9. Nor, again, do I now MISS THE BODILY STRENGTH OF A YOUNG MAN
(for that was the second point as to the disadvantages of old age)
any more than as a young man I missed the strength of a bull or an

ON OLD AGE 55

elephant. You should use what you have, and whatever you may

chance to be doing, do it with all your might. What could be weaker

than Milo of Croton's exclamation? When in his old age he was

watching some athletes practising in the course, he is said to have

looked at his arms and to have exclaimed with tears in his eyes:

"Ah, well! these are now as good as dead." Not a bit more so than

yourself, you trifler! For at no time were you made famous by your

real self, but by chest and biceps. Sext. ^lius never gave vent to

such a remark, nor, many years before him, Titus Coruncanius, nor,

more recently, P. Crassus all of them learned jurisconsults in active

practice, whose knowledge of their profession was maintained to

their last breath. I am afraid an orator does lose vigour by old age,

for his art is not a matter of the intellect alone, but of lungs and

bodily strength. Though as a rule that musical ring in the voice

even gains in brilliance in a certain way as one grows old certainly

I have not yet lost it, and you see my years. Yet after all the style of

speech suitable to an old man is the quiet and unemotional, and it

often happens that the chastened and calm delivery of an old man

eloquent secures a hearing. If you cannot attain to that yourself,

you might still instruct a Scipio and a Ladius. For what is more

charming than old age surrounded by the enthusiasm of youth?

Shall we not allow old age even the strength to teach the young, to

train and equip them for all the duties of life ? And what can be a

nobler employment? For my part, I used to think Publius and

Gnzus Scipio and your two grandfathers, L. ^Emilius and P.

Africanus, fortunate men when I saw them with a company of young

nobles about them. Nor should we think any teachers of the fine

arts otherwise than happy, however much their bodily forces may

have decayed and failed. And yet that same failure of the bodily

forces is more often brought about by the vices of youth than of

old age; for a dissolute and intemperate youth hands down the body

to old age in a worn-out state. Xenophon's Cyrus, for instance, in

his discourse delivered on his death-bed and at a very advanced age,

says that he never perceived his old age to have become weaker than

his youth had been. I remember as a boy Lucius Metellus, who,

having been created Pontifex Maximus four years after his second

consulship, held that office twenty-two years, enjoying such excellent

56 CICERO

strength of body in the very last hours of his life as not to miss his
youth. I need not speak of myself; though that indeed is an old
man's way and is generally allowed to my time of life. Don't you
see in Homer how frequently Nestor talks of his own good qualities ?
For he was living through a third generation; nor had he any reason
to fear that upon saying what was true about himself he should
appear either over vain or talkative. For, as Homer says, "from his
lips flowed discourse sweeter than honey," for which sweet breath
he wanted no bodily strength. And yet, after all, the famous leader
of the Greeks nowhere wishes to have ten men like Ajax, but like
Nestor: if he could get them, he feels no doubt of Troy shortly
falling.

10. But to return to my own case: I am in my eighty-fourth year.
I could wish that I had been able to make the same boast as Cyrus;
but, after all, I can say this: I am not indeed as vigorous as I was as
a private soldier in the Punic war, or as quaestor in the same war,
or as consul in Spain, and four years later when as a military tribune
I took part in the engagement at Thermopylae under the consul
Manius Acilius Glabrio; but yet, as you see, old age has not entirely
destroyed my muscles, has not quite brought me to the ground. The
Senate-house does not find all my vigour gone, nor the rostra, nor
my friends, nor my clients, nor my foreign guests. For I have never
given in to that ancient and much-praised proverb :

Old when young
Is old for long.

For myself, I had rather be an old man a somewhat shorter time
than an old man before my time. Accordingly, no one up to the
present has wished to see me, to whom I have been denied as
engaged. But, it may be said, I have less strength than either of you.
Neither have you the strength of the centurion T. Pontius: is he
the more eminent man on that account? Let there be only a proper
husbanding of strength, and let each man proportion his efforts to
his powers. Such an one will assuredly not be possessed with any
great regret for his loss of strength. At Olympia Milo is said to
have stepped into the course carrying a live ox on his shoulders.
Which then of the two would you prefer to have given to you

ON OLD AGE 57

bodily strength like that, or intellectual strength like that of Py-
thagoras? In fine, enjoy that blessing when you have it; when it is
gone, don't wish it back unless we are to think that young men
should wish their childhood back, and those somewhat older their
youth! The course of life is fixed, and nature admits of its being
run but in one way, and only once; and to each part of our life there
is something specially seasonable; so that the feebleness of children,
as well as the high spirit of youth, the soberness of maturer years,
and the ripe wisdom of old age all have a certain natural advantage
which should be secured in its proper season. I think you are in-
formed, Scipio, what your grandfather's foreign friend Masinissa
does to this day, though ninety years old. When he has once begun
a journey on foot he does not mount his horse at all; when on
horseback he never gets off his horse. By no rain or cold can he be
induced to cover his head. His body is absolutely free from unhealthy
humours, and so he still performs all the duties and functions of a
king. Active exercise, therefore, and temperance can preserve some
part of one's former strength even in old age.

ii. Bodily strength is wanting to old age; but neither is bodily
strength demanded from old men. Therefore, both by law and
custom, men of my time of life are exempt from those duties which
cannot be supported without bodily strength. Accordingly not only
are we not forced to do what we cannot do; we are not even obliged
to do as much as we can. But, it will be said, many old men are so
feeble that they cannot perform any duty in life of any sort or kind.
That is not a weakness to be set down as peculiar to old age: i't
is one shared by ill health. How feeble was the son of P. Africanus,
who adopted you! What weak health he had, or rather no health
at all! If that had not been the case, we should have had in him a
second brilliant light in the political horizon; for he had added a
wider cultivation to his father's greatness of spirit. What wonder
then, that old men are eventually feeble, when even young men
cannot escape it? My dear Ladius and Scipio, we must stand up
against old age and make up for its drawbacks by taking pains. We
must fight it as we should an illness. We must look after our
health, use moderate exercise, take just enough food and drink to
recruit, but not to overload, our strength. Nor is it the body alone

58 CICERO

that must be supported, but the intellect and soul much more. For
they are like lamps: unless you feed them with oil, they too go out
from old age. Again, the body is apt to get gross from exercise;
but the intellect becomes nimbler by exercising itself. For what
Csecilius means by "old dotards of the comic stage" are the credulous,
the forgetful, and the slipshod. These are faults that do not attach
to old age as such, but to a sluggish, spiritless, and sleepy old age.
Young men are more frequently wanton and dissolute than old
men; but yet, as it is not all young men that are so, but the bad set
among them, even so senile folly usually called imbecility applies
to old men of unsound character, not to all. Appius governed four
sturdy sons, five daughters, that great establishment, and all those
clients, though he was both old and blind. For he kept his mind
at full stretch like a bow, and never gave in to old age by growing
slack. He maintained not merely an influence but an absolute com-
mand over his family: his slaves feared him, his sons were in awe
of him, all loved him. In that family, indeed, ancestral custom and
discipline were in full vigour. The fact is that old age is respectable
just as long as it asserts itself, maintains its proper rights, and is
not enslaved to any one. For as I admire a young man who has
something of the old man in him, so do I an old one who has
something of a young man. The man who aims at this may possibly
become old in body in mind he never will. I am now engaged in
composing the seventh book of my Origins. I collect all the records
of antiquity. The speeches delivered in all the celebrated cases which
I have defended I am at this particular time getting into shape for
publication. I am writing treatises on augural, pontifical, and civil
law. I am, besides, studying hard at Greek, and after the manner of
the Pythagoreans to keep my memory in working order I repeat
in the evening whatever I have said, heard, or done in the course
of each day. These are the exercises of the intellect, these the training-
grounds of the mind: while I sweat and labour on these I don't
much feel the loss of bodily strength. I appear in court for my
friends; I frequently attend the Senate and bring motions before
it on my own responsibility, prepared after deep and long reflection.
And these I support by my intellectual, not my bodily forces. And
if I were not strong enough to do these things, yet I should enjoy

ON OLD AGE 59

my sofa imagining the very operations which I was now unable
to perform. But what makes me capable of doing this is my past
life. For a man who is always living in the midst of these studies
and labours does not perceive when old age creeps upon him. Thus,
by slow and imperceptible degrees life draws to its end. There is
no sudden breakage; it just slowly goes out.

12. The third charge against old age is that it LACKS SENSUAL
PLEASURES. What a splendid service does old age render, if it takes
from us the greatest blot of youth! Listen, my dear young friends,
to a speech of Archytas of Tarentum, among the greatest and most
illustrious of men, which was put into my hands when as a young
man I was at Tarentum with Q. Maximus. "No more deadly curse
than sensual pleasure has been inflicted on mankind by nature, to
gratify which our wanton appetites are roused beyond all prudence
or restraint. It is a fruitful source of treasons, revolutions, secret
communications with the enemy. In fact, there is no crime, no evil
deed, to which the appetite for sensual pleasures does not impel us.
Fornications and adulteries, and every abomination of that kind, are
brought about by the enticements of pleasure and by them alone.
Intellect is the best gift of nature or God: to this divine gift and
endowment there is nothing so inimical as pleasure. For when
appetite is our master, there is no place for self-control; nor where
pleasure reigns supreme can virtue hold its ground. To see this
more vividly, imagine a man excited to the highest conceivable pitch
of sensual pleasure. It can be doubtful to no one that such a person,
so long as he is under the influence of such excitation of the senses,
will be unable to use to any purpose either intellect, reason, or
thought. Therefore nothing can be so execrable and so fatal as
pleasure; since, when more than ordinarily violent and lasting, it
darkens all the light of the soul."

These were the words addressed by Archytas to the Samnite Gaius
Pontius, father of the man by whom the consuls Spurius Postumius
and Titus Veturius were beaten in the battle of Caudium. My friend
Nearchus of Tarentum, who had remained loyal to Rome, told me
that he had heard them repeated by some old men; and that Plato
the Athenian was present, who visited Tarentum, I find, in the
consulship of L. Camillus and Appius Claudius.

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What is the point of all this? It is to show you that, if we were
unable to scorn pleasure by the aid of reason and philosophy, we
ought to have been very grateful to old age for depriving us of all
inclination for that which it was wrong to do. For pleasure hinders
thought, is a foe to reason, and, so to speak, blinds the eyes of the
mind. It is, moreover, entirely alien to virtue. I was sorry to have
to expel Lucius, brother of the gallant Titus Flamininus, from the
Senate seven years after his consulship; but I thought it imperative
to affix a stigma on an act of gross sensuality. For when he was in
Gaul as consul, he had yielded to the entreaties of his paramour at
a dinner-party to behead a man who happened to be in prison
condemned on a capital charge. When his brother Titus was Censor,
who preceded me, he escaped; but I and Flaccus could not counte-
nance an act of such criminal and abandoned lust, especially as,
besides the personal dishonour, it brought disgrace on the Govern-
ment.

13. I have often been told by men older than myself, who said
that they had heard it as boys from old men, that Gaius Fabricius
was in the habit of expressing astonishment at having heard, when
envoy at the headquarters of King Pyrrhus, from the Thessalian
Cineas, that there was a man of Athens who professed to be a
"philosopher," and affirmed that everything we did was to be referred
to pleasure. When he told this to Manius Curius and Publius Decius,
they used to remark that they wished that the Samnites and Pyrrhus
himself would hold the same opinion. It would be much easier to
conquer them, if they had once given themselves over to sensual
indulgences. Manius Curius had been intimate with P. Decius, who
four years before the former's consulship had devoted himself to
death for the Republic. Both Fabricius and Coruncanius knew him
also, and from the experience of their own lives, as well as from
the action of P. Decius, they were of opinion that there did exist
something intrinsically noble and great, which was sought for its
own sake, and at which all the best men aimed, to the contempt and
neglect of pleasure. Why then do I spend so many words on the
subject of pleasure? Why, because, far from being a charge against
old age, that it does not much feel the want of any pleasures, it is
its highest praise.

ON OLD AGE 6 1

But, you will say, it is deprived of the pleasures of the table, the
heaped-up board, the rapid passing of the wine-cup. Well, then, it
is also free from headache, disordered digestion, broken sleep. But
if we must grant pleasure something, since we do not find it easy to
resist its charms, for Plato, with happy inspiration, calls pleasure
"vice's bait," because of course men are caught by it as fish by a
hook, yet, although old age has to abstain from extravagant ban-
quets, it is still capable of enjoying modest festivities. As a boy I
often used to see Gaius Duilius, the son of Marcus, then an old
man, returning from a dinner-party. He thoroughly enjoyed the
frequent use of torch and flute-player, distinctions which he had
assumed though unprecedented in the case of a private person. It
was the privilege of his glory. But why mention others? I will
come back to my own case. To begin with, I have always remained a
member of a "club" clubs, you know, were established in my
quaestorship on the reception of the Magna Mater from Ida. So
I used to dine at their feast with the members of my club on the
whole with moderation, though there was a certain warmth of
temperament natural to my time of life; but as that advances there
is a daily decrease of all excitement. Nor was I, in fact, ever wont to
measure my enjoyment even of these banquets by the physical
pleasures they gave more than by the gathering and conversation
of friends. For it was a good idea of our ancestors to style the
presence of guests at a dinner-table seeing that it implied a com-
munity of enjoyment a convivium, "a living together." It is a
better term than the Greek words which mean "a drinking together"
or "an eating together." For they would seem to give the prefer-
ence to what is really the least important part of it.

14. For myself, owing to the pleasure I take in conversation, I
enjoy even banquets that begin early in the afternoon, and not only
in company with my contemporaries of whom very few survive
but also with men of your age and with yourselves. I am thankful
to old age, which has increased my avidity for conversation, while it
has removed that for eating and drinking. But if any one does enjoy
these not to seem to have proclaimed war against all pleasure
without exception, which is perhaps a feeling inspired by nature
I fail to perceive even in these very pleasures that old age is entirely

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without the power of appreciation. For myself, I take delight even in
the old-fashioned appointment of master of the feast; and in the
arrangement of the conversation, which according to ancestral
custom is begun from the last place on the left-hand couch when
the wine is brought in; as also in the cups which, as in Xenophon's
banquet, are small and filled by driblets; and in the contrivance for
cooling in summer, and for warming by the winter sun or winter
fire. These things I keep up even among my Sabine countrymen,
and every day have a full dinner-party of neighbours, which we
prolong as far into the night as we can with varied conversation.

But you may urge there is not the same tingling sensation of
pleasure in old men. No doubt; but neither do they miss it so much.
For nothing gives you uneasiness which you do not miss. That was
a fine answer of Sophocles to a man who asked him, when in
extreme old age, whether he was still a lover. "Heaven forbid!" he
replied; "I was only too glad to escape from that, as though from a
boorish and insane master." To men indeed who are keen after such
things it may possibly appear disagreeable and uncomfortable to be
without them; but to jaded appetites it is pleasanter to lack than to
enjoy. However, he cannot be said to lack who does not want: my
contention is that not to want is the pleasanter thing.

But even granting that youth enjoys these pleasures with more
zest; in the first place, they are insignificant things to enjoy, as I
have said; and in the second place, such as age is not entirely without,
if it does not possess them in profusion. Just as a man gets greater
pleasure from Ambivius Turpio if seated in the front row at the
theatre than if he was in the last, yet, after all, the man in the last
row does get pleasure; so youth, because it looks at pleasures at
closer quarters, perhaps enjoys itself more, yet even old age, looking
at them from a distance, does enjoy itself well enough. Why, what
blessings are these that the soul, having served its time, so to speak,
in the campaigns of desire and ambition, rivalry and hatred, and
all the passions, should live in its own thoughts, and, as the expres-
sion goes, should dwell apart! Indeed, if it has in store any of what
I may call the food of study and philosophy, nothing can be
pleasanter than an old age of leisure. We were witnesses to C. Gallus
a friend of your father's, Scipio intent to the day of his death on

ON OLD AGE 63

mapping out the sky and land. How often did the light surprise
him while still working out a problem begun during the night!
How often did night find him busy on what he had begun at dawn!
How he delighted in predicting for us solar and lunar eclipses long
before they occurred! Or again in studies of a lighter nature, though
still requiring keenness of intellect, what pleasure Narvius took in
his Punic War! Plautus in his Truculentus and Pseudolus! I even
saw Livius Andronicus, who, having produced a play six years
before I was born in the consulship of Cento and Tuditanus lived
till I had become a young man. Why speak of Publius Licinius
Crassus's devotion to pontifical and civil law, or of the Publius
Scipio of the present time, who within these last few days has been
created Pontifex Maximus? And yet I have seen all whom I have
mentioned ardent in these pursuits when old men. Then there is
Marcus Cethegus, whom Ennius justly called "Persuasion's Marrow"
with what enthusiasm did we see him exert himself in oratory
even when quite old! What pleasures are there in feasts, games, or
mistresses comparable to pleasures such as these? And they are all
tastes, too, connected with learning, which in men of sense and good
education grow with their growth. It is indeed an honourable senti-
ment which Solon expresses in a verse which I have quoted before
that he grew old learning many a fresh lesson every day. Than that
intellectual pleasure none certainly can be greater.

15. I come now to the pleasures of the farmer, in which I take
amazing delight. These are not hindered by any extent of old age,
and seem to me to approach nearest to the ideal wise man's life. For
he has to deal with the earth, which never refuses its obedience, nor
ever returns what it has received without usury; sometimes, indeed,
with less, but generally with greater interest. For my part, however,
it is not merely the thing produced, but the earth's own force and
natural productiveness that delight me. For having received in its
bosom the seed scattered broadcast upon it, softened and broken up,
she first keeps it concealed therein (hence the harrowing which
accomplishes this gets its name from a word meaning "to hide");
next, when it has been warmed by her heat and close pressure, she
splits it open and draws from it the greenery of the blade. This,
supported by the fibres of the root, little by little grows up, and held

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upright by its jointed stalk is enclosed in sheaths, as being still im-
mature. When it has emerged from them it produces an ear of
corn arranged in order, and is defended against the pecking of the
smaller birds by a regular palisade of spikes.

Need I mention the starting, planting, and growth of vines? I
can never have too much of this pleasure to let you into the secret
of what gives my old age repose and amusement. For I say nothing
here of the natural force which all things propagated from the earth
possess the earth which from that tiny grain in a fig, or the grape-
stone in a grape, or the most minute seeds of the other cereals and
plants, produces such huge trunks and boughs. Mallet-shoots, slips,
cuttings, quicksets, layers are they not enough to fill any one with
delight and astonishment? The vine by nature is apt to fall, and
unless supported drops down to the earth; yet in order to keep
itself upright it embraces whatever it reaches with its tendrils as
though they were hands. Then as it creeps on, spreading itself in
intricate and wild profusion, the dresser's art prunes it with the
knife and prevents it growing a forest of shoots and expanding to
excess in every direction. Accordingly at the beginning of spring in
the shoots which have been left there protrudes at each of the joints
what is termed an "eye." From this the grape emerges and shows
itself; which, swollen by the juice of the earth and the heat of the
sun, is at first very bitter to the taste, but afterwards grows sweet as
it matures; and being covered with tendrils is never without a
moderate warmth, and yet is able to ward off the fiery heat of the
sun. Can anything be richer in product or more beautiful to con-
template? It is not its utility only, as I said before, that charms me,
but the method of its cultivation and the natural process of its
growth: the rows of uprights, the cross-pieces for the tops of the
plants, the tying up of the vines and their propagation by layers, the
pruning, to which I have already referred, of some shoots, the setting
of others. I need hardly mention irrigation, or trenching and digging
the soil, which much increase its fertility. As to the advantages of
manuring I have spoken in my book on agriculture. The learned
Hesiod did not say a single word on this subject, though he was
writing on the cultivation of the soil; yet Homer, who in my opinion
was many generations earlier, represents Laertes as softening his

ON OLD AGE 65

regret for his son by cultivating and manuring his farm. Nor is it
only in cornfields and meadows and vineyards and plantations that
a farmer's life is made cheerful. There are the garden and the
orchard, the feeding of sheep, the swarms of bees, endless varieties
of flowers. Nor is it only planting out that charms: there is also
grafting surely the most ingenious invention ever made by hus-
bandmen.

1 6. I might continue my list of the delights of country life; but
even what I have said I think is somewhat overlong. However, you
must pardon me; for farming is a very favourite hobby of mine,
and old age is naturally rather garrulous for I would not be thought
to acquit it of all faults.

Well, it was in a life of this sort that Manius Curius, after celebrat-
ing triumphs over the Samnites, the Sabines, and Pyrrhus, spent his
last days. When I look at his villa for it is not far from my own
I never can enough admire the man's own frugality or the spirit
of the age. As Curius was sitting at his hearth the Samnites, who
brought him a large sum of gold, were repulsed by him; for it was
not, he said, a fine thing in his eyes to possess gold, but to rule those
who possessed it. Could such a high spirit fail to make old age
pleasant ?

But to return to farmers not to wander from my own metier.
In those days there were senators, i.e., old men, on their farms. For
L. Quinctius Cincinnatus was actually at the plough when word
was brought him that he had been named Dictator. It was by his
order as Dictator, by the way, that C. Servilius Ahala, the Master
of the Horse, seized and put to death Spurius Maelius when attempt-
ing to obtain royal power. Curius as well as other old men used
to receive their summonses to attend the Senate in their farm-houses,
from which circumstances the summoners were called viatores or
"travellers." Was these men's old age an object of pity who found
their pleasure in the cultivation of the land ? In my opinion, scarcely
any life can be more blessed, not alone from its utility (for agricul-
ture is beneficial to the whole human race), but also as much from
the mere pleasure of the thing, to which I have already alluded,
and from the rich abundance and supply of all things necessary for
the food of man and for the worship of the gods above. So, as these

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are objects of desire to certain people, let us make our peace with
pleasure. For the good and hard-working farmer's wine-cellar and
oil-store, as well as his larder, are always well rilled, and his whole
farm-house is richly furnished. It abounds in pigs, goats, lambs,
fowls, milk, cheese, and honey. Then there is the garden, which the
farmers themselves call their "second flitch." A zest and flavour is
added to all these by hunting and fowling in spare hours. Need I
mention the greenery of meadows, the rows of trees, the beauty of
vineyard and olive-grove? I will put it briefly: nothing can either
furnish necessaries more richly, or present a fairer spectacle, than
well-cultivated land. And to the enjoyment of that, old age does not
merely present no hindrance it actually invites and allures to it.
For where else can it better warm itself, either by basking in the
sun or by sitting by the fire, or at the proper time cool itself more
wholesomely by the help of shade or water? Let the young keep
their arms then to themselves, their horses, spears, their foils and
ball, their swimming-baths and running-path. To us old men let
them, out of the many forms of sport, leave dice and counters; but
even that as they choose, since old age can be quite happy without
them.

17. Xenophon's books are very useful for many purposes. Pray
go on reading them with attention, as you have ever done. In what
ample terms is agriculture lauded by him in the book about husband-
ing one's property, which is called (Economicus! But to show you
that he thought nothing so worthy of a prince as the taste for cultivat-
ing the soil, I will translate what Socrates says to Critobulus in that
book:

"When that most gallant Lacedaemonian, Lysander, came to visit
the Persian prince Cyrus at Sardis, so eminent for his character and
the glory of his rule, bringing him presents from his allies, he treated
Lysander in all ways with courteous familiarity and kindness, and,
among other things, took him to see a certain park carefully planted.
Lysander expressed admiration of the height of the trees and the
exact arrangement of their rows in the quincunx, the careful cultiva-
tion of the soil, its freedom from weeds, and the sweetness of the
odours exhaled from the flowers, and went on to say that what he
admired was not the industry only, but also the skill of the man by

ON OLD AGE 67

whom this had been planned and laid out. Cyrus replied: 'Well,
it was I who planned the whole thing; these rows are my doing, the
laying out is all mine; many of the trees were even planted by my
own hand.' Then Lysander, looking at his purple robe, the brilliance
of his person, and his adornment Persian fashion with gold and many
jewels, said: 'People are quite right, Cyrus, to call you happy, since
the advantages of high fortune have been joined to an excellence like
yours.' "

This kind of good fortune, then, it is in the power of old men to
enjoy; nor is age any bar to our maintaining pursuits of every other
kind, and especially of agriculture, to the very extreme verge of
old age. For instance, we have it on record that M. Valerius Corvus
kept it up to his hundredth year, living on his land and cultivating
it after his active career was over, though between his first and sixth
consulships there was an interval of six and forty years. So that he
had an official career lasting the number of years which our ances-
tors defined as coming between birth and the beginning of old age.
Moreover, that last period of his old age was more blessed than that
of his middle life, inasmuch as he had greater influence and less
labour. For the crowning grace of old age is influence.

How great was that of L. Cascilius Metellus! How great that of
Atilius Calatinus, over whom the famous epitaph was placed, "Very
many classes agree in deeming this to have been the very first man
of the nation"! The line cut on his tomb is well known. It is
natural, then, that a man should have had influence, in whose praise
the verdict of history is unanimous. Again, in recent times, what
a great man was Publius Crassus, Pontifex Maximus, and his suc-
cessor in the same office, M. Lepidus! I need scarcely mention
Paulus or Africanus, or, as I did before, Maximus. It was not only
their senatorial utterances that had weight: their least gesture had it
also. In fact, old age, especially when it has enjoyed honours, has
an influence worth all the pleasures of youth put together.

18. But throughout my discourse remember that my panegyric
applies to an old age that has been established on foundations laid
by youth. From which may be deduced what I once said with
universal applause, that it was a wretched old age that had to defend
itself by speech. Neither white hairs nor wrinkles can at once claim

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influence in themselves: it is the honourable conduct of earlier days
that is rewarded by possessing influence at the last. Even things
generally regarded as trifling and matters of course being saluted,
being courted, having way made for one, people rising when one
approaches, being escorted to and from the forum, being referred to
for advice all these are marks of respect, observed among us and
in other States always most sedulously where the moral tone is
highest. They say that Lysander the Spartan, whom I have men-
tioned before, used to remark that Sparta was the most dignified
home for old age; for that nowhere was more respect paid to years,
nowhere was old age held in higher honour. Nay, the story is told
of how when a man of advanced years came into the theatre at
Athens when the games were going on, no place was given him
anywhere in that large assembly by his own countrymen; but when
he came near the Lacedaemonians, who as ambassadors had a fixed
place assigned to them, they rose as one man out of respect for him,
and gave the veteran a seat. When they were greeted with rounds
of applause from the whole audience, one of them remarked: "The
Athenians know what is right, but will not do it."

There are many excellent rules in our augural college, but among
the best is one which affects our subject that precedence in speech
goes by seniority; and augurs who are older are preferred not only
to those who have held higher office, but even to those who are
actually in possession of imperium. What then are the physical
pleasures to be compared with the reward of influence? Those
who have employed it with distinction appear to me to have played
the drama of life to its end, and not to have broken down in the last
act like unpractised players.

But, it will be said, old men are fretful, fidgety, ill-tempered, and
disagreeable. If you come to that, they are also avaricious. But these
are faults of character, not of the time of life. And, after all, fret-
fulness and the other faults I mentioned admit of some excuse not,
indeed, a complete one, but one that may possibly pass muster:
they think themselves neglected, looked down upon, mocked. Be-
sides, with bodily weakness every rub is a source of pain. Yet all
these faults are softened both by good character and good education.

ON OLD AGE 69

Illustrations of this may be found in real life, as also on the stage
in the case of the brothers in the Addphi. What harshness in the
one, what gracious manners in the other! The fact is that, just as it
is not every wine, so it is not every life, that turns sour from
keeping. Serious gravity I approve of in old age, but, as in other
things, it must be within due limits: bitterness I can in no case
approve. What the object of senile avarice may be I cannot con-
ceive. For can there be anything more absurd than to seek more
journey money, the less there remains of the journey?

19. There remains the fourth reason, which more than anything
else appears to torment men of my age and keep them in a flutter
THE NEARNESS OF DEATH, which, it must be allowed, cannot be
far from an old man. But what a poor dotard must he be who
has not learnt in the course of so long a life that death is not a
thing to be feared? Death, that is either to be totally disregarded,
if it entirely extinguishes the soul, or is even to be desired, if it
brings him where he is to exist forever. A third alternative, at any
rate, cannot possibly be discovered. Why then should I be afraid if
I am destined either not to be miserable after death or even to be
happy? After all, who is such a fool as to feel certain however
young he may be that he will be alive in the evening? Nay, that
time of life has many more chances of death than ours. Young men
more easily contract diseases; their illnesses are more serious; their
treatment has to be more severe. Accordingly, only a few arrive
at old age. If that were not so, life would be conducted better and
more wisely; for it is in old men that thought, reason, and prudence
are to be found; and if there had been no old men, States would
never have existed at all. But I return to the subject of the imminence
of death. What sort of charge is this against old age, when you see
that it is shared by youth? I had reason in the case of my excellent
son as you had, Scipio, in that of your brothers, who were expected
to attain the highest honours to realise that death is common to
every time of life. Yes, you will say; but a young man expects to
live long; an old man cannot expect to do so. Well, he is a fool
to expect it. For what can be more foolish than to regard the
uncertain as certain, the false as true? "An old man has nothing

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even to hope." Ah, but it is just there that he is in a better position
than a young man, since what the latter only hopes he has obtained.
The one wishes to live long; the other has lived long.

And yet, good heavens! what is "long" in a man's life? For grant
the utmost limit: let us expect an age like that of the King of the
Tartessi. For there was, as I find recorded, a certain Agathonius at
Gades who reigned eighty years and lived a hundred and twenty.
But to my mind nothing seems even long in which there is any
"last," for when that arrives, then all the past has slipped away
only that remains to which you have attained by virtue and righteous
actions. Hours indeed, and days and months and years depart, nor
does past time ever return, nor can the future be known. Whatever
time each is granted for life, with that he is bound to be content.
An actor, in order to earn approval, is not bound to perform the play
from beginning to end; let him only satisfy the audience in whatever
act he appears. Nor need a wise man go on to the concluding
"plaudite." For a short term of life is long enough for living well
and honourably. But if you go farther, you have no more right
to grumble than farmers do because the charm of the spring season
is past and the summer and autumn have come. For the word
"spring" in a way suggests youth, and points to the harvest to be:
the other seasons are suited for the reaping and storing of the crops.
Now the harvest of old age is, as I have often said, the memory and
rich store of blessings laid up in earlier life. Again, all things that
accord with nature are to be counted as good. But what can be
more in accordance with Nature than for old men to die? A thing,
indeed, which also befalls young men, though Nature revolts and
fights against it. Accordingly, the death of young men seems to me
like putting out a great fire with a deluge of water; but old men die
like a fire going out because it has burnt down of its own nature
without artificial means. Again, just as apples when unripe are
torn from trees, but when ripe and mellow drop down, so it is
violence that takes life from young men, ripeness from old. This
ripeness is so delightful to me that, as I approach nearer to death,
I seem, as it were, to be sighting land, and to be coming to port at
last after a long voyage.

20. Again, there is no fixed border-line for old age, and you are

ON OLD AGE 71

making a good and proper use of it as long as you can satisfy the
call of duty and disregard death. The result of this is, that old age
is even more confident and courageous than youth. That is the
meaning of Solon's answer to the tyrant Pisistratus. When the
latter asked him what he relied upon in opposing him with such
boldness, he is said to have replied, "On my old age." But that end
of life is the best when, without the intellect or senses being impaired,
Nature herself takes to pieces her own handiwork which she also
put together. Just as the builder of a ship or a house can break
them up more easily than any one else, so the Nature that knit
together the human frame can also best unfasten it. Moreover, a
thing freshly glued together is always difficult to pull asunder; if
old, this is easily done.

The result is that the short time of life left to them is not to be
grasped at by old men with greedy eagerness, or abandoned without
cause. Pythagoras forbids us, without an order from our commander,
that is God, to desert life's fortress and outpost. Solon's epitaph,
indeed, is that of a wise man, in which he says that he does not wish
his death to be unaccompanied by the sorrow and lamentations of
his friends. He wants, I suppose, to be beloved by them. But I
rather think Ennius says better:

None grace me with their tears, nor weeping loud
Make sad my funeral rites!

He holds that a death is not a subject for mourning when it is
followed by immortality.

Again, there may possibly be some sensation of dying and that
only for a short time, especially in the case of an old man: after
death, indeed, sensation is either what one would desire, or it
disappears altogether. But to disregard death is a lesson which must
be studied from our youth up; for unless that is learnt, no one can
have a quiet mind. For die we certainly must, and that too without
being certain whether it may not be this very day. As death, there-
fore, is hanging over our head every hour, how can a man ever be
unshaken in soul if he fears it?

But on this theme I don't think I need much enlarge: when I
remember what Lucius Brutus did, who was killed while defending

72 CICERO

his country; or the two Decii, who spurred their horses to a gallop
and met a voluntary death; or M. Atilius Regulus, who left his home
to confront a death of torture, rather than break the word which he
had pledged to the enemy; or the two Scipios, who determined to
block the Carthaginian advance even with their own bodies; or your
grandfather Lucius Paulus, who paid with his life for the rashness
of his colleague in the disgrace at Cannas; or M. Marcellus, whose
death not even the most bloodthirsty of enemies would allow to go
without the honour of burial. It is enough to recall that our legions
(as I have recorded in my Origins) have often marched with cheerful
and lofty spirit to ground from which they believed that they would
never return. That, therefore, which young men not only unin-
structed, but absolutely ignorant treat as of no account, shall men
who are neither young nor ignorant shrink from in terror? As a
general truth, as it seems to me, it is weariness of all pursuits that
creates weariness of life. There are certain pursuits adapted to child-
hood: do young men miss them? There are others suited to early
manhood: does that settled time of life called "middle age" ask for
them ? There are others, again, suited to that age, but not looked for
in old age. There are, finally, some which belong to old age. There-
fore, as the pursuits of the earlier ages have their time for disappear-
ing, so also have those of old age. And when that takes place, a
satiety of life brings on the ripe time for death.

21. For I do not see why I should not venture to tell you my
personal opinion as to death, of which I seem to myself to have a
clearer vision in proportion as I am nearer to it. I believe, Scipio
and Ladius, that your fathers those illustrious men and my dearest
friends are still alive, and that too with a life which alone deserves
the name. For as long as we are imprisoned in this framework of the
body, we perform a certain function and laborious work assigned
us by fate. The soul, in fact, is of heavenly origin, forced down from
its home in the highest, and, so to speak, buried in earth, a place
quite opposed to its divine nature and its immortality. But I suppose
the immortal gods to have sown souls broadcast in human bodies,
that there might be some to survey the world, and while contemplat-
ing the order of the heavenly bodies to imitate it in the unvarying
regularity of their life. Nor is it only reason and arguments that

ON OLD AGE 73

have brought me to this belief, but the great fame and authority
of the most distinguished philosophers. I used to be told that Py-
thagoras and the Pythagoreans almost natives of our country, who
in old times had been called the Italian school of philosophers
never doubted that we had souls drafted from the universal Divine
intelligence. I used besides to have pointed out to me the discourse
delivered by Socrates on the last day of his life upon the immortality
of the soul Socrates, who was pronounced by the oracle at Delphi
to be the wisest of men. I need say no more. I have convinced
myself, and I hold in view of the rapid movement of the soul, its
vivid memory of the past and its prophetic knowledge of the future,
its many accomplishments, its vast range of knowledge, its numerous
discoveries that a nature embracing such varied gifts cannot itself
be mortal. And since the soul is always in motion and yet has no
external source of motion, for it is self-moved, I conclude that it
will also have no end to its motion, because it is not likely ever to
abandon itself. Again, since the nature of the soul is not composite,
nor has in it any admixture that is not homogeneous and similar, I
conclude that it is indivisible, and, if indivisible, that it cannot perish.
It is again a strong proof of men knowing most things before birth,
that when mere children they grasp innumerable facts with such
speed as to show that they are not then taking them in for the first
time, but remembering and recalling them. This is roughly Plato's
argument.

22. Once more in Xenophon we have the elder Cyrus on his
deathbed speaking as follows:

"Do not suppose, my dearest sons, that when I have left you I
shall be nowhere and no one. Even when I was with you, you did
not see my soul, but knew that it was in this body of mine from what
I did. Believe then that it is still the same, even though you see it
not. The honours paid to illustrious men had not continued to exist
after their death, had the souls of these very men not done some-
thing to make us retain our recollection of them beyond the ordinary
time. For myself, I never could be persuaded that souls while in
mortal bodies were alive, and died directly they left them; nor, in
fact, that the soul only lost all intelligence when it left the unintel-
ligent body. I believe rather that when, by being liberated from all

74 CICERO

corporeal admixture, it has begun to be pure and undefiled, it is
then that it becomes wise. And again, when man's natural frame
is resolved into its elements by death, it is clearly seen whither each
of the other elements departs : for they all go to the place from which
they came: but the soul alone is invisible alike when present and
when departing. Once more, you see that nothing is so like death
as sleep. And yet it is in sleepers that souls most clearly reveal their
divine nature; for they foresee many events when they are allowed to
escape and are left free. This shows what they are likely to be when
they have completely freed themselves from the fetters of the body.
Wherefore, if these things are so, obey me as a god. But if my soul
is to perish with my body, nevertheless do you from awe of the gods,
who guard and govern this fair universe, preserve my memory by
the loyalty and piety of your lives."

23. Such are the words of the dying Cyrus. I will now, with your
good leave, look at home. No one, my dear Scipio, shall ever
persuade me that your father, Paulus, and your two grandfathers,
Paulus and Africanus, or the father of Africanus, or his uncle, or
many other illustrious men not necessary to mention, would have
attempted such lofty deeds as to be remembered by posterity, had
they not seen in their minds that future ages concerned them. Do
you suppose to take an old man's privilege of a little self-praise
that I should have been likely to undertake such heavy labours by
day and night, at home and abroad, if I had been destined to have the
same limit to my glory as to my life ? Had it not been much better
to pass an age of ease and repose without any labour or exertion?
But my soul, I know not how, refusing to be kept down, ever fixed
its eyes upon future ages, as though from a conviction that it would
begin to live only when it had left the body. But had it not been the
case that souls were immortal, it would not have been the souls of
all the best men that made the greatest efforts after an immortality
of fame.

Again, is there not the fact that the wisest man ever dies with the
greatest cheerfulness, the most unwise with the least? Don't you
think that the soul which has the clearer and longer sight sees that it
is starting for better things, while the soul whose vision is dimmer
does not see it? For my part, I am transported with the desire to

ON OLD AGE 75

see your fathers, who were the object of my reverence and affection.
Nor is it only those whom I knew that I long to see; it is those also
of whom I have been told and have read, whom I have myself
recorded in my history. When I am setting out for that, there is
certainly no one who will find it easy to draw me back, or boil me
up again like second Pelios. Nay, if some god should grant me to
renew my childhood from my present age and once more to be cry-
ing in my cradle, I would firmly refuse; nor should I in truth be
willing, after having, as it were, run the full course, to be recalled
from the winning-crease to the barriers. For what blessing has life
to offer ? Should we not rather say, what labour ? But granting that
it has, at any rate it has after all a limit either to enjoyment or t'o
existence. I don't wish to depreciate life, as many men and good
philosophers have often done; nor do I regret having lived, for I
have done so in a way that lets me think that I was not born in vain.
But I quit life as I would an inn, not as I would a home. For nature
has given us a place of entertainment, not of residence.

Oh, glorious day when I shall set out to join that heavenly conclave
and company of souls, and depart from the turmoil and impurities
of this world! For I shall not go to join only those whom I have
before mentioned, but also my son Cato, than whom no better man
was ever born, nor one more conspicuous for piety. His body was
burnt by me, though mine ought, on the contrary, to have been
burnt by him; but his spirit, not abandoning, but ever looking back
upon me, has certainly gone whither he saw that I too must com* 3 .
I was thought to bear that loss heroically, not that I really bore
it without distress, but I found my own consolation in the thought
that the parting and separation between us was not to be for long.

It is by these means, my dear Scipio, for you said that you and
Ladius were wont to express surprise on this point, that my old
age sits lightly on me, and is not only not oppressive but even
delightful. But if I am wrong in thinking the human soul immortal,
I am glad to be wrong; nor will I allow the mistake which gives me
so much pleasure to be wrested from me as long as I live. But if
when dead, as some insignificant philosophers think, I am to be
without sensation, I am not afraid of dead philosophers deriding
my errors. Again, if we are not to be immortal, it is nevertheless

76 CICERO

what a man must wish to have his life end at its proper time. For
nature puts a limit to living as to everything else. Now, old age is,
as it were, the playing out of the drama, the full fatigue of which
we should shun, especially when we also feel that we have had more
than enough of it.

This is all I had to say on old age. I pray that you may arrive at it,
that you may put my words to a practical test.

LETTERS OF CICERO

TRANSLATED BY
E. S. SHUCKBURGH

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

THE letters of Cicero are of a very varied character. They range from
the most informal communications with members of his family to serious
and elaborate compositions which are practically treatises in epistolary
form. A very large proportion of them were obviously written out of the
mood of the moment, with no thought of the possibility of publication;
and in these the style is comparatively relaxed and colloquial. Others,
addressed to public characters, are practically of the same nature as his
speeches, discussions of political questions intended to influence public
opinion, and performing a function in the Roman life of the time closely
analogous to that fulfilled at the present day by articles in the great
reviews, or editorials in prominent journals.

In the case of both of these two main groups the interest is twofold:
personal and historical, though it is naturally in the private letters that
we find most light thrown on the character of the writer. In spite of the
spontaneity of these epistles there exists a great difference of opinion
among scholars as to the personality revealed by them, and both in the
extent of the divergence of view and in the heat of the controversy we are
reminded of modern discussions of the characters of men such as Glad-
stone or Roosevelt. It has been fairly said that there is on the whole
more chance of justice to Cicero from the man of the world who under-
stands how the stress and change of politics lead a statesman into appar-
ently inconsistent utterances than from the professional scholar who
subjects these utterances to the severest logical scrutiny, without the
illumination of practical experience.

Many sides of Cicero's life other than the political are reflected in the
letters. From them we can gather a picture of how an ambitious Roman
gentleman of some inherited wealth took to the legal profession as the
regular means of becoming a public figure; of how his fortune might be
increased by fees, by legacies from friends, clients, and even complete
strangers who thus sought to confer distinction on themselves; of how
the governor of a province could become rich in a year; of how the sons
of Roman men of wealth gave trouble to their tutors, were sent to Athens,
as to a university in our day, and found an allowance of over $4,000 a
year insufficient for their extravagances. Again, we see the greatest
orator of Rome divorce his wife after thirty years, apparently because she
had been indiscreet or unscrupulous in money matters, and marry at the
age of sixty-three his own ward, a young girl whose fortune he admitted

79

8o INTRODUCTORY NOTE

was the main attraction. The coldness of temper suggested by these
transactions is contradicted in turn by Cicero's romantic affection for his
daughter Tullia, whom he is never tired of praising for her cleverness
and charm, and whose death almost broke his heart.

Most of Cicero's letters were written in ink on paper or parchment
with a reed pen; a few on tablets of wood or ivory covered with wax, the
marks being cut with a stylus. The earlier letters he wrote with his own
hand, the later were, except in rare cases, dictated to a secretary. There
was, of course, no postal service, so the epistles were carried by private
messengers or by the couriers who were constantly traveling between the
provincial officials and the capital.

Apart from the letters to Atticus, the collection, arrangement, and pub-
lication of Cicero's correspondence seem to have been due to Tiro, the
learned freedman who served him as secretary, and to whom some of
the letters are addressed. Titus Pomponius Atticus, who edited the large
collection of the letters written to himself, was a cultivated Roman who
lived more than twenty years in Athens for purposes of study. His zeal
for cultivation was combined with the successful pursuit of wealth; and
though Cicero relied on him for aid and advice in public as well as
private matters, their friendship did not prevent Atticus from being on
good terms with men of the opposite party.

Generous, amiable, and cultured, Atticus was not remarkable for the
intensity of his devotion either to principles or persons. "That he was the
lifelong friend of Cicero," says Professor Tyrrell, "is the best title which
Atticus has to remembrance. As a man he was kindly, careful, and
shrewd, but nothing more: there was never anything grand or noble in
his character. He was the quintessence of prudent mediocrity."

The period covered by the letters of Cicero is one of the most interest-
ing and momentous in the history of the world, and these letters afford
a picture of the chief personages and most important events of that age
from the pen of a man who was not only himself in the midst of the
conflict, but who was a consummate literary artist.

LETTERS

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO

To ATTICUS (AT ATHENS)
ROME, JULY, 65 B.C.

/" AHE state of things in regard to my candidature, in which I
know that you are supremely interested, is this, as far as can
_M_ be as yet conjectured. The only person actually canvassing
is P. Sulpicius Galba. He meets with a good old-fashioned refusal
without reserve or disguise. In the general opinion this premature
canvass of his is not unfavourable to my interests; for the voters
generally give as a reason for their refusal that they are under
obligations to me. So I hope my prospects are to a certain degree
improved by the report getting about that my friends are found to
be numerous. My intention was to begin my own canvass just at the
very time that Cincius tells me that your servant starts with this
letter, namely, in the campus at the time of the tribunician elections
on the lyth of July. My fellow candidates, to mention only those
who seem certain, are Galba and Antonius and Q. Cornificius. At
this I imagine you smiling or sighing. Well, to make you positively
smite your forehead, there are people who actually think that
Caesonius will stand. I don't think Aquilius will, for he openly
disclaims it and has alleged as an excuse his health and his leading
position at the bar. Catiline will certainly be a candidate, if you
can imagine a jury finding that the sun does not shine at noon. As
for Aufidius and Palicanus, I don't think you will expect to hear
from me about them. Of the candidates for this year's election Caesar
is considered certain. Thermus is looked upon as the rival of Silanus.
These latter are so weak both in friends and reputation that it seems
pas impossible to bring in Curius over their heads. But no one else

81

82 CICERO

thinks so. What seems most to my interests is that Thermus should
get in with Caesar. For there is none of those at present canvassing
who, if left over to my year, seems likely to be a stronger candidate,
from the fact that he is commissioner of the via Flaminia, and when
that has been finished, I shall be greatly relieved to have seen him
elected consul this election. Such in outline is the position of affairs
in regard to candidates up to date. For myself I shall take the greatest
pains to carry out all the duties of a candidate, and perhaps, as Gaul
seems to have a considerable voting power, as soon as business at
Rome has come to a standstill I shall obtain a liber a legatio and make
an excursion in the course of September to visit Piso, but so as not to
be back later than January. When I have ascertained the feelings
of the nobility I will write you word. Everything else I hope will go
smoothly, at any rate while my competitors are such as are now in
town. You must undertake to secure for me the entourage of our
friend Pompey, since you are nearer than I. Tell him I shall not
be annoyed if he doesn't come to my election. So much for that
business. But there is a matter for which I am very anxious that you
should forgive me. Your uncle Cascilius, having been defrauded of a
large sum of money by P. Varius, began an action against his cousin
A. Caninius Satyrus for the property which (as he alleged) the latter
had received from Varius by a collusive sale. He was joined in this
action by the other creditors, among whom were Lucullus and P.
Scipio, and the man who they thought would be official receiver if the
property was put up for sale, Lucius Pontius; though it is ridiculous
to be talking about a receiver at this stage in the proceedings. Cxci-
lius asked me to appear for him against Satyrus. Now, scarcely a day
passes that Satyrus does not call at my house. The chief object of his
attentions is L. Domitius, but I am next in his regard. He has been
of great service both to myself and to my brother Quintus in our
elections. I was very much embarrassed by my intimacy with
Satyrus as well as that with Domitius, on whom the success of my
election depends more than on anyone else. I pointed out these
facts to Caecilius; at the same time I assured him that if the case had
been one exclusively between himself and Satyrus, I would have done
what he wished. As the matter actually stood, all the creditors being
concerned and that two men of the highest rank, who, without the

LETTERS 83

aid of anyone specially retained by Caecilius, would have no difficulty
in maintaining their common cause it was only fair that he should
have consideration both for my private friendship and my present
situation. He seemed to take this somewhat less courteously than
I could have wished, or than is usual among gentlemen; and from
that time forth he has entirely withdrawn from the intimacy with me
which was only of a few days' standing. Pray forgive me, and believe
that I was prevented by nothing but natural kindness from assailing
the reputation of a friend in so vital a point at a time of such very
great distress, considering that he had shewn me every sort of kind-
ness and attention. But if you incline to the harsher view of my
conduct, take it that the interests of my canvass prevented me. Yet,
even granting that to be so, I think you should pardon me, "since not
for sacred beast or oxhide shield." You see in fact the position I am
in, and how necessary I regard it, not only to retain but even to
acquire all possible sources of popularity. I hope I have justified
myself in your eyes; I am at any rate anxious to have done so. The
Hermathena you sent I am delighted with: it has been placed with
such charming effect that the whole gymnasium seems arranged
specially for it. I am exceedingly obliged to you.

II

To ATTICUS (AT ATHENS)
ROME, JULY, 65 B.C.

I HAVE to inform you that on the day of the election of L. lulius
Caesar and C. Marcius Figulus to the consulship, I had an addition
to my family in the shape of a baby boy. Terentia doing well.

Why such a time without a letter from you? I have already
written to you fully about my circumstances. At this present time
I am considering whether to undertake the defence of my fellow
candidate, Catiline. We have a jury to our minds with full consent
of the prosecutor. I hope that if he is acquitted he will be more
closely united with me in the conduct of our canvass; but if the
result be otherwise I shall bear it with resignation. Your early
return is of great importance to me, for there is a very strong idea

84 CICERO

prevailing that some intimate friends of yours, persons of high rank,
will be opposed to my election. To win me their favour I see that
I shall want you very much. Wherefore be sure to be in Rome in
January, as you have agreed to be.

Ill

To CN. POMPEIUS MAGNUS
ROME, 62 B.C.

M. Tullius Cicero, son of Marcus, greets Cn. Pompeius, son of
Cneius, Imperator.

IF you and the army are well I shall be glad. From your official
despatch I have, in common with everyone else, received the liveliest
satisfaction; for you have given us that strong hope of peace, of
which, in sole reliance on you, I was assuring everyone. But I must
inform you that your old enemies now posing as your friends
have received a stunning blow by this despatch, and, being disap-
pointed in the high hopes they were entertaining, are thoroughly
depressed. Though your private letter to me contained a somewhat
slight expression of your affection, yet I can assure you it gave me
pleasure: for there is nothing in which I habitually find greater
satisfaction than in the consciousness of serving my friends; and if
on any occasion I do not meet with an adequate return, I am not at
all sorry to have the balance of kindness in my favour. Of this I
feel no doubt even if my extraordinary zeal in your behalf has
failed to unite you to me that the interests of the state will certainly
effect a mutual attachment and coalition between us. To let you
know, however, what I missed in your letter I will write with the
candour which my own disposition and our common friendship
demand. I did expect some congratulation in your letter on my
achievements, for the sake at once of the ties between us and of the
Republic. This I presume to have been omitted by you from a fear
of hurting anyone's feelings. But let me tell you that what I did
for the salvation of the country is approved by the judgment and
testimony of the whole world. You are a much greater man than
Africanus, but I am not much inferior to Laelius either; and when

LETTERS 85

you come home you will recognize that I have acted with such
prudence and spirit, that you will not now be ashamed of being
coupled with me in politics as well as in private friendship.

IV

To ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)
ROME, 5 DECEMBER, 61 B.C.

YOUR letter, in which you inclose copies of his letters, has made me
realize that my brother Quintus's feelings have undergone many
alternations, and that his opinions and judgments have varied widely
from time to time. This has not only caused me all the pain which
my extreme affection for both of you was bound to bring, but it
has also made me wonder what can have happened to cause my
brother Quintus such deep offence, or such an extraordinary change
of feeling. And yet I was already aware, as I saw that you also,
when you took leave of me, were beginning to suspect, that there was
some lurking dissatisfaction, that his feelings were wounded, and
that certain unfriendly suspicions had sunk deep into his heart. On
trying on several previous occasions, but more eagerly than ever
after the allotment of his province, to assuage these feelings, I failed
to discover on the one hand that the extent of his offence was so
great as your letter indicates; but on the other I did not make as
much progress in allaying it as I wished. However, I consoled my-
self with thinking that there would be no doubt of his seeing you at
Dyrrachium, or somewhere in your part of the country: and, if
that happened, I felt sure and fully persuaded that everything would
be made smooth between you, not only by conversation and mutual
explanation, but by the very sight of each other in such an interview.
For I need not say in writing to you, who know it quite well, how
kind and sweet-tempered my brother is, as ready to forgive as he is
sensitive in taking offence. But it most unfortunately happened that
you did not see him anywhere. For the impression he had received
from the artifices of others had more weight with him than duty or
relationship, or the old affection so long existing between you,
which ought to have been the strongest influence of all. And yet,

86 CICERO

as to where the blame for this misunderstanding resides, I can more
easily conceive than write: since I am afraid that, while defending
my own relations, I should not spare yours. For I perceive that,
though no actual wound was inflicted by members of the family, they
yet could at least have cured it. But the root of the mischief in this
case, which perhaps extends farther than appears, I shall more con-
veniently explain to you when we meet. As to the letter he sent to
you from Thessalonica, and about the language which you suppose
him to have used both at Rome among your friends and on his
journey, I don't know how far the matter went, but my whole hope
of removing this unpleasantness rests on your kindness. For if you
will only make up your mind to believe that the best men are often
those whose feelings are most easily irritated and appeased, and that
this quickness, so to speak, and sensitiveness of disposition are
generally signs of a good heart; and lastly and this is the main
thing that we must mutually put up with each other's gaucheries
(shall I call them?), or faults, or injurious acts, then these misunder-
standings will, I hope, be easily smoothed away. I beg you to take
this view, for it is the dearest wish of my heart (which is yours as no
one else's can be) that there should not be one of my family or 1
friends who does not love you and is not loved by you.

That part of your letter was entirely superfluous, in which you
mention what opportunities of doing good business in the provinces
or the city you let pass at other times as well as in the year of my
consulship: for I am thoroughly persuaded of your unselfishness
and magnanimity, nor did I ever think that there was any difference
between you and me except in our choice of a career. Ambition led
me to seek official advancement, while another and perfectly laudable
resolution led you to seek an honourable privacy. In the true glory,
which is founded on honesty, industry, and piety, I place neither
myself nor anyone else above you. In affection towards myself, next
to my brother and immediate family, I put you first. For indeed,
indeed I have seen and thoroughly appreciated how your anxiety and
joy have corresponded with the variations of my fortunes. Often has
your congratulation added a charm to praise, and your consolation a
welcome antidote to alarm. Nay, at this moment of your absence,
it is not only your advice in which you excel but the interchange

LETTERS 87

of speech in which no one gives me so much delight as you do
that I miss most, shall I say in politics, in which circumspection is
always incumbent on me, or in my forensic labour, which I formerly
sustained with a view to official promotion, and nowadays to main-
tain my position by securing popularity, or in the mere business
of my family ? In all these I missed you and our conversations before
my brother left Rome, and still more do I miss them since. Finally,
neither my work nor rest, neither my business nor leisure, neither
my affairs in the forum nor at home, public or private, can any longer
do without your most consolatory and affectionate counsel and con-
versation. The modest reserve which characterizes both of us has
often prevented my mentioning these facts; but on this occasion it
was rendered necessary by that part of your letter in which you
expressed a wish to have yourself and your character "put straight"
and "cleared" in my eyes. Yet, in the midst of all this unfortunate
alienation and anger on his part, there is yet one fortunate circum-
stance that your determination of not going to a province was
known to me and your other friends, and had been at various times
asserted by yourself; so that your not being with him may be
attributed to your personal tastes and judgment, not to the quarrel
and rupture between you. So those ties which have been broken will
be restored, and ours which have been so religiously preserved will
retain all their old inviolability. At Rome I find politics in a shaky
condition; everything is unsatisfactory and foreboding change. For
I have no doubt you have been told that our friends, the equites, are
all but alienated from the senate. Their first grievance was the
promulgation of a bill on the authority of the senate for the trial
of such as had taken bribes for giving a verdict. I happened not to
be in the house when that decree was passed, but when I found that
the equestrian order was indignant at it, and yet refrained from
openly saying so, I remonstrated with the senate, as I thought, in
very impressive language, and was very weighty and eloquent con-
sidering the unsatisfactory nature of my cause. But here is another
piece of almost intolerable coolness on the part of the equites, which
I have not only submitted to, but have even put in as good a light
as possible! The companies which had contracted with the censors
for Asia complained that in the heat of the competition they had

00 CICERO

taken the contract at an excessive price; they demanded that the
contract should be annulled. I led in their support, or rather, I was
second, for it was Crassus who induced them to venture on this
demand. The case is scandalous, the demand a disgraceful one, and
a confession of rash speculation. Yet there was a very great risk that,
if they got no concession, they would be completely alienated from
the senate. Here again I came to the rescue more than anyone else,
and secured them a full and very friendly house, in which I, on the
ist and 2nd of December, delivered long speeches on the dignity and
harmony of the two orders. The business is not yet settled, but the
favourable feeling of the senate has been made manifest: for no one
had spoken against it except the consul-designate, Metellus; while
our hero Cato had still to speak, the shortness of the day having
prevented his turn being reached. Thus I, in the maintenance of my
steady policy, preserve to the best of my ability that harmony of the
orders which was originally my joiner's work; but since it all now
seems in such a crazy condition, I am constructing what I may call a
road towards the maintenance of our power, a safe one I hope, which

1 cannot fully describe to you in a letter, but of which I will never-
theless give you a hint. I cultivate close intimacy with Pompey.
I foresee what you will say. I will use all necessary precautions,
and I will write another time at greater length about my schemes
for managing the Republic. You must know that Lucceius has it in
his mind to stand for the consulship at once; for there are said to be
only two candidates in prospect. Caesar is thinking of coming to
terms with him by the agency of Arrius, and Bibulus also thinks he
may effect a coalition with him by means of C. Piso. You smile?
This is no laughing matter, believe me. What else shall I write to
you? What? I have plenty to say, but must put it of? to another
time. If you mean to wait till you hear, let me know. For the
moment I am satisfied with a modest request, though it is what I
desire above everything that you should come to Rome as soon as
possible.

5 December.

LETTERS 09

V

To TERENTIA, TULLIOLA, AND YOUNG CICERO (AT ROME)
BRUNDISIUM, 29 APRIL, 58 B.C.

YES, I do write to you less often than I might, because, though I
am always wretched, yet when I write to you or read a letter from
you, I am in such floods of tears that I cannot endure it. Oh, that I
had clung less to life! I should at least never have known real sor-
row, or not much of it, in my life. Yet if fortune has reserved for
me any hope of recovering at any time any position again, I was not
utterly wrong to do so: if these miseries are to be permanent, I
only wish, my dear, to see you as soon as possible and to die in your
arms, since neither gods, whom you have worshipped with such
pure devotion, nor men, whom I have ever served, have made us
any return. I have been thirteen days at Brundisium in the house of
M. Lamius Flaccus, a very excellent man, who has despised the risk
to his fortunes and civil existence in comparison to keeping me safe,
nor has been induced by the penalty of a most iniquitous law to
refuse me the rights and good offices of hospitality and friendship.
May I sometime have the opportunity of repaying him! Feel grati-
tude I always shall. I set out from Brundisium on the 29th of April,
and intend going through Macedonia to Cyzicus. What a fall! What
a disaster! What can I say? Should I ask you to come a woman of
weak health and broken spirit? Should I refrain from asking you?
Am I to be without you, then? I think the best course is this: it
there is any hope of my restoration, stay to promote it and push the
thing on: but if, as I fear, it proves hopeless, pray come to me by any
means in your power. Be sure of this, that if I have you I shall not
think myself wholly lost. But what is to become of my darling
Tullia? You must see to that now: I can think of nothing. But
certainly, however things turn out, we must do everything to promote
that poor little girl's married happiness and reputation. Again, what
is my boy Cicero to do? Let him, at any rate, be ever in my bosom
and in my arms. I can't write more. A fit of weeping hinders me.
I don't know how you have got on; whether you are left in possession
of anything, or have been, as I fear, entirely plundered. Piso, as you

9O CICERO

say, I hope will always be our friend. As to the manumission of the
slaves you need not be uneasy. To begin with, the promise made to
yours was that you would treat them according as each severally de-
served. So far Orpheus has behaved well, besides him no one very
markedly so. With the rest of the slaves the arrangement is that,
if my property is forfeited, they should become my freedmen, sup-
posing them to be able to maintain at law that status. But if my
property remained in my ownership, they were to continue slaves,
with the exception of a very few. But these are trifles. To return to
your advice, that I should keep up my courage and not give up hope
of recovering my position, I only wish that there were any good
grounds for entertaining such a hope. As it is, when, alas! shall I
get a letter from you ? Who will bring it me ? I would have waited
for it at Brundisium, but the sailors would not allow it, being unwill-
ing to lose a favourable wind. For the rest, put as dignified a face on
the matter as you can, my dear Terentia. Our life is over: we have
had our day: it is not any fault of ours that has ruined us, but our
virtue. I have made no false step, except in not losing my life when
I lost my honours. But since our children preferred my living, let
us bear everything else, however intolerable. And yet I, who en-
courage you, cannot encourage myself. I have sent that faithful fellow
Clodius Philhetasrus home, because he was hampered with weakness
of the eyes. Sallustius seems likely to outdo everybody in his atten-
tions. Pescennius is exceedingly kind to me; and I have hopes that he
will always be attentive to you. Sicca had said that he would accom-
pany me; but he has left Brundisium. Take the greatest care of your
health, and believe me that I am more affected by your distress than
my own. My dear Terentia, most faithful and best of wives, and my
darling little daughter, and that last hope of my race, Cicero, good-
bye!
29 April, from Brundisium.

VI
To His BROTHER QUINTUS (ON His WAY TO ROME)

THESSALONICA, 15 JUNE, 58 B.C.

BROTHER! Brother! Brother! did you really fear that I had been
induced by some angry feeling to send slaves to you without a letter ?

LETTERS 91

Or even that I did not wish to see you? I to be angry with you! Is
it possible for me to be angry with you ? Why, one would think that
it was you that brought me low! Your enemies, your unpopularity,
that miserably ruined me, and not I that unhappily ruined you! The
fact is, the much-praised consulate of mine has deprived me of you,
of children, country, fortune; from you I should hope it will have
taken nothing but myself. Certainly on your side I have experienced
nothing but what was honourable and gratifying: on mine you have
grief for my fall and fear for your own, regret, mourning, desertion.
/ not wish to see you ? The truth is rather that I was unwilling to be
seen by you. For you would not have seen your brother not the
brother you had left, not the brother you knew, not him to whom
you had with mutual tears bidden farewell as he followed you on
your departure for your province: not a trace even or faint image of
him, but rather what I may call the likeness of a living corpse. And
oh, that you had sooner seen me or heard of me as a corpse! Oh,
that I could have left you to survive, not my life merely, but my
undiminished rank! But I call all the gods to witness that the one
argument which recalled me from death was, that all declared that
to some extent your life depended upon mine. In which matter I
made an error and acted culpably. For if I had died, that death itself
would have given clear evidence of my fidelity and love to you. As
it is, I have allowed you to be deprived of my aid, though I am alive,
and with me still living to need the help of others; and my voice, of
all others, to fail when dangers threatened my family, which had so
often been successfully used in the defence of the merest strangers.
For as to the slaves coming to you without a letter, the real reason
(for you see that it was not anger) was a deadness of my faculties,
and a seemingly endless deluge of tears and sorrows. How many
tears do you suppose these very words have cost me? As many as I
know they will cost you to read them! Can I ever refrain from think-
ing of you or ever think of you without tears? For when I miss
you, is it only a brother that I miss? Rather it is a brother of almost
my own age in the charm of his companionship, a son in his con-
sideration for my wishes, a father in the wisdom of his advice! What
pleasure did I ever have without you, or you without me? And what
must my case be when at the same time I miss a daughter: How

92 CICERO

affectionate! how modest! how clever! The express image of my
face, of my speech, of my very soul! Or again a son, the prettiest
boy, the very joy of my heart? Cruel, inhuman monster that I am,
I dismissed him from my arms better schooled in the world than I
could have wished : for the poor child began to understand what was
going on. So, to, your own son, your own image, whom my little
Cicero loved as a brother, and was now beginning to respect as an
elder brother! Need I mention also how I refused to allow my
unhappy wife the truest of helpmates to accompany me, that there
might be someone to protect the wrecks of the calamity which had
fallen on us both, and guard our common children? Nevertheless,
to the best of my ability, I did write a letter to you, and gave it to
your freedman Philogonus, which, I believe, was delivered to you
later on; and in this I repeat the advice and entreaty, which had been
already transmitted to you as a message from me by my slaves, that
you should go on with your journey and hasten to Rome. For, in the
first place, I desired your protection, in case there were any of my
enemies whose cruelty was not yet satisfied by my fall. In the next
place, I dreaded the renewed lamentation which our meeting would
cause: while I could not have borne your departure, and was afraid
of the very thing you mention in your letter that you would be
unable to tear yourself away. For these reasons the supreme pain of
not seeing you and nothing more painful or more wretched could,
I think, have happened to the most affectionate and united of
brothers was a less misery than would have been such a meeting
followed by such a parting. Now, if you can, though I, whom you
always regarded as a brave man, cannot do so, rouse yourself and
collect your energies in view of any contest you may have to con-
front. I hope, if my hope has anything to go upon, that your own
spotless character and the love of your fellow citizens, and even
remorse for my treatment, may prove a certain protection to you.
But if it turns out that you are free from personal danger, you will
doubtless do whatever you think can be done for me. In that matter,
indeed, many write to me at great length and declare they have
hopes; but I personally cannot see what hope there is, since my
enemies have the greatest influence, while my friends have in some
cases deserted, in others even betrayed me, fearing perhaps in my

LETTERS 93

restoration a censure on their own treacherous conduct. But how
matters stand with you I would have you ascertain and report to me.
In any case I shall continue to live as long as you shall need me, in
view of any danger you may have to undergo: longer than that I
cannot go in this kind of life. For there is neither wisdom nor
philosophy with sufficient strength to sustain such a weight of grief.
I know that there has been a time for dying, more honourable and
more advantageous; and this is not the only one of my many omis-
sions; which if I should choose to bewail, I should merely be increas-
ing your sorrow and emphasizing my own stupidity. But one thing
I am not bound to do, and it is in fact impossible remain in a life
so wretched and so dishonoured any longer than your necessities,
or some well-grounded hope, shall demand. For I, who was lately
supremely blessed in brother, children, wife, wealth, and in the very
nature of that wealth, while in position, influence, reputation, and
popularity, I was inferior to none, however distinguished I cannot,
I repeat, go on longer lamenting over myself and those dear to me
in a life of such humiliation as this, and in a state of such utter ruin.
Wherefore, what do you mean by writing to me about negotiating
a bill of exchange? As though I were not now wholly dependent
on your means! And that is just the very thing in which I see
and feel, to my misery, of what a culpable act I have been guilty in
squandering to no purpose the money which I received from the
treasury in your name, while you have to satisfy your creditors out
of the very vitals of yourself and your son. However, the sum
mentioned in your letter has been paid to M. Antonius, and the same
amount to Caepio. For me the sum at present in my hands is sufficient
for what I contemplate doing. For in either case whether I am
restored or given up in despair I shall not want any more money.
For yourself, if you are molested, I think you should apply to Crassus
and Calidius. I don't know how far Hortensius is to be trusted.
Myself, with the most elaborate presence of affection and the closest
daily intimacy, he treated with the most utter want of principle and
the most consummate treachery, and Q. Arrius helped him in it:
acting under whose advice, promises, and injunctions, I was left
helpless to fall into this disaster. But this you will keep dark for fear
they might injure you. Take care also and it is on this account that

94 CICERO

I think you should cultivate Hortensius himself by means of Pom-
ponius that the epigram on the lex Aurelia attributed to you when
candidate for the aedileship is not proved by false testimony to be
yours. For there is nothing that I am so afraid of as that, when people
understand how much pity for me your prayers and your acquittal
will rouse, they may attack you with all the greater violence. Messalla
I reckon as really attached to you: Pompey I regard as still pretending
only. But may you never have to put these things to the test! And
that prayer I would have offered to the gods had they not ceased to
listen to prayers of mine. However, I do pray that they may be
content with these endless miseries of ours; among which, after all,
there is no discredit for any wrong thing done sorrow is the be-
ginning and end, sorrow that punishment is most severe when our
conduct has been most unexceptionable. As to my daughter and
yours and my young Cicero, why should I recommend them to you,
my dear brother ? Rather I grieve that their orphan state will cause
you no less sorrow than it does me. Yet as long as you are uncon-
demned they will not be fatherless. The rest, by my hopes of restora-
tion and the privilege of dying in my fatherland, my tears will not
allow me to write! Terentia also I would ask you to protect, and to
write me word on every subject. Be as brave as the nature of the
case admits.
Thessalonica, 13 June.

VII

To ATTICUS (IN Epraus)
ROME, SEPTEMBER, 57 B.C.

DIRECTLY I arrived at Rome, and there was anyone to whom I
could safely intrust a letter for you, I thought the very first thing
I ought to do was to congratulate you in your absence on my return.
For I knew, to speak candidly, that though in giving me advice you
had not been more courageous or far-seeing than myself, nor con-
sidering my devotion to you in the past too careful in protecting
me from disaster, yet that you though sharing in the first instance
in my mistake, or rather madness, and in my groundless terror had

LETTERS 95

nevertheless been deeply grieved at our separation, and had bestowed
immense pains, zeal, care, and labour in securing my return. Accord
ingly, I can truly assure you of this, that in the midst of supreme
joy and the most gratifying congratulations, the one thing wanting
to fill my cup of happiness to the brim is the sight of you, or rathei
your embrace; and if I ever forfeit that again, when I have once got
possession of it, and i too, I do not exact the full delights of your
charming society that have fallen into arrear in the past, I shall cer-
tainly consider myself unworthy of this renewal of my good fortune.
In regard to my political position, I have resumed what I thought
there would be the utmost difficulty in recovering my brilliant
standing at the bar, my influence in the senate, and a popularity with
the loyalists even greater than I desired. In regard, however, to my
private property as to which you are well aware to what an extent
it has been crippled, scattered, and plundered I am in great difficul-
ties, and stand in need, not so much of your means (which I look
upon as my own), as of your advice for collecting and restoring to a
sound state the fragments that remain. For the present, though I
believe everything finds its way to you in the letters of your friends,
or even by messengers and rumour, yet I will write briefly what I
think you would like to learn from my letters above all others.
On the 4th of August I started from Dyrrachium, the very day on
which the law about me was carried. I arrived at Brundisium on
the 5th of August. There my dear Tulliola met me on what was her
own birthday, which happened also to be the name-day of the colony
of Brundisium and of the temple of Safety, near your house. This
coincidence was noticed and celebrated with warm congratulations
by the citizens of Brundisium. On the 8th of August, while still at
Brundisium, I learnt by a letter from Quintus that the law had been
passed at the comitia centuriata with a surprising enthusiasm on the
part of all ages and ranks, and with an incredible influx of voters
from Italy. I then commenced my journey, amidst the compliments
of the men of highest consideration at Brundisium, and was met at
every point by legates bearing congratulations. My arrival in the
neighbourhood of the city was the signal for every soul of every order
known to my nomenclator coming out to meet me, except those
enemies who could not either dissemble or deny the fact of their

96 CICERO

being such. On my arrival at the Porta Capena, the steps of the
temples were already thronged from top to bottom by the populace;
and while their congratulations were displayed by the loudest
possible applause, a similar throng and similar applause accompanied
me right up to the Capitol, and in the forum and on the Capitol
itself there was again a wonderful crowd. Next day, in the senate,
that is, the 5th of September, I spoke my thanks to the senators. Two
days after that there having been a very heavy rise in the price of
corn, and great crowds having flocked first to the theatre and then
to the senate-house, shouting out, at the instigation of Clodius, that
the scarcity of corn was my doing meetings of the senate being
held on those days to discuss the corn question, and Pompey being
called upon to undertake the management of its supply in the
common talk not only of the plebs, but of the aristocrats also, and
being himself desirous of the commission, when the people at large
called upon me by name to support a decree to that effect, I did so,
and gave my vote in a carefully worded speech. The other consulars,
except Messalla and Afranius, having absented themselves on the
ground that they could not vote with safety to themselves, a decree
of the senate was passed in the sense of my motion, namely, that
Pompey should be appealed to to undertake the business, and that
a law should be proposed to that effect. This decree of the senate
having been publicly read, and the people having, after the sense-
less and newfangled custom that now prevails, applauded the men-
tion of my name, I delivered a speech. All the magistrates present,
except one prastor and two tribunes, called on me to speak. Next
day a full senate, including all the consulars, granted everything
that Pompey asked for. Having demanded fifteen legates, he named
me first in the list, and said that he should regard me in all things
as a second self. The consuls drew up a law by which complete
control over the corn-supply for five years throughout the whole
world was given to Pompey. A second law is drawn up by Messius,
granting him power over all money, and adding a fleet and army,
and an imperium in the provinces superior to that of their governors.
After that our consular law seems moderate indeed: that of Messius
is quite intolerable. Pompey professes to prefer the former; his
friends the latter. The consulars led by Favonius murmur: I hold

LETTERS 97

my tongue, the more so that the pontifices have as yet given no
answer in regard to my house. If they annul the consecration I
shall have a splendid site. The consuls, in accordance with a decree
of the senate, will value the cost of the building that stood upon it;
but if the pontifices decide otherwise, they will pull down the Clodian
building, give out a contract in their own name (for a temple), and
value to me the cost of a site and house. So our affairs are

"For happy though but ill, for ill not worst."

In regard to money matters I am, as you know, much embarrassed.
Besides, there are certain domestic troubles, which I do not intrust
to writing. My brother Quintus I love as he deserves for his eminent
qualities of loyalty, virtue, and good faith. I am longing to see you,
and beg you to hasten your return, resolved not to allow me to be
without the benefit of your advice. I am on the threshold, as it were,
of a second life. Already certain persons who defended me in my
absence begin to nurse a secret grudge at me now that I am here,
and to make no secret of their jealousy. I want you very much.

VIII

To His BROTHER QUINTUS (IN SARDINIA)
ROME, 12 FEBRUARY, 56 B.C.

I HAVE already told you the earlier proceedings; now let me
describe what was done afterwards. The legations were postponed
from the ist of February to the i3th. On the former day our business
was not brought to a settlement. On the 2nd of February Milo
appeared for trial. Pompey came to support him. Marcellus spoke
on being called upon by me. We came off with flying colours. The
case was adjourned to the yth. Meanwhile (in the senate), the
legations having been postponed to the i3th, the business of allotting
the quaestors and furnishing the outfit of the prztors was brought
before the house. But nothing was done, because many speeches
were interposed denouncing the state of the Republic. Gaius Cato
published his bill for the recall of Lentulus, whose son thereon put
on mourning. On the yth Milo appeared. Pompey spoke, or rather

98 CICERO

wished to speak. For as soon as he got up Clodius's ruffians raised a
shout, and throughout his whole speech he was interrupted, not only
by hostile cries, but by personal abuse and insulting remarks. How-
ever, when he had finished his speech for he shewed great courage
in these circumstances, he was not cowed, he said all he had to say,
and at times had by his commanding presence even secured silence
for his words well, when he had finished, up got Clodius. Our
party received him with such a shout for they had determined to
pay him out that he lost all presence of mind, power of speech, or
control over his countenance. This went on up to two o'clock
Pompey having finished his speech at noon and every kind of
abuse, and finally epigrams of the most outspoken indecency, were
uttered against Clodius and Clodia. Mad and livid with rage,
Clodius, in the very midst of the shouting, kept putting questions to
his claque: "Who was it who was starving the commons to death?"
His ruffians answered, "Pompey." "Who wanted to be sent to
Alexandria?" They answered, "Pompey." "Whom did they wish
to go?" They answered, "Crassus." The latter was present at the
time with no friendly feelings to Milo. About three oclock, as though
at a given signal, the Clodians began spitting at our men. There
was an outburst of rage. They began a movement for forcing us from
our ground. Our men charged: his ruffians turned tail. Clodius was
pushed off the rostra: and then we too made our escape for fear of
mischief in the riot. The senate was summoned into the Curia:
Pompey went home. However, I did not myself enter the senate-
house, lest I should be obliged either to refrain from speaking on
matters of such gravity, or in defending Pompey (for he was being
attacked by Bibulus, Curio, Favonius, and Servilius the younger)
should give offence to the loyalists. The business was adjourned to
the next day. Clodius fixed the Quirinalia (lyth of February) for
his prosecution. On the 8th the senate met in the temple of Apollo,
that Pompey might attend. Pompey made an impressive speech.
That day nothing was concluded. On the 9th in the temple of Apollo
a decree passed the senate "that what had taken place on the yth of
February was treasonable." On this day Cato warmly inveighed
against Pompey, and throughout his speech arraigned him as though
he were at the bar. He said a great deal about me, to my disgust,

LETTERS 99

though it was in very laudatory terms. When he attacked Pompey's
perfidy to me, he was listened to in profound silence on the part of
my enemies. Pompey answered him boldly with a palpable allusion
to Crassus, and said outright that "he would take better precautions
to protect his life than Africanus had done, whom C. Carbo had
assassinated." Accordingly, important events appear to me to be in
the wind. For Pompey understands what is going on, and imparts
to me that plots are being formed against his life, that Gaius Cato
is being supported by Crassus, that money is being supplied to
Clodius, that both are backed by Crassus and Curio, as well as by
Bibulus and his other detractors: that he must take extraordinary
precautions to prevent being overpowered by that demagogue with
a people all but wholly alienated, a nobility hostile, a senate ill-
affected, and the younger men corrupt. So he is making his prepara-
tions and summoning men from the country. On his part, Clodius
is rallying his gangs: a body of men is being got together for the
Quirinalia. For that occasion we are considerably in a majority,
owing to the forces brought up by Pompey himself: and a large con-
tingent is expected from Picenum and Gallia, to enable us to throw
out Cato's bills also about Milo and Lentulus.

On the loth of February an indictment was lodged against Sestius
for bribery by the informer Cn. Nerius, of the Pupinian tribe, and
on the same day by a certain M. Tullius for riot. He was ill. I went
at once, as I was bound to do, to his house, and put myself wholly
at his service: and that was more than people expected, who thought
that I had good cause for being angry with him. The result is
that my extreme kindness and grateful disposition are made manifest
both to Sestius himself and to all the world, and I shall be as good
as my word. But this same informer Nerius also named Cn. Lentulus
Vatia and C. Cornelius to the commissioners. On the same day a
decree passed the senate "that political clubs and associations should
be broken up, and that a law in regard to them should be brought in,
enacting that those who did not break off from them should be
liable to the same penalty as those convicted of riot."

On the nth of February I spoke in defence of Bestia on a charge
of bribery before the pra?tor Cn. Domitius, in the middle of the
forum and in a very crowded court; and in the course of my speech

IOO CICERO

I came to the incident of Sestius, after receiving many wounds, in
the temple of Castor, having been preserved by the aid of Bestia.
Here I took occasion to pave the way beforehand for a refutation of
the charges which are being got up against Sestius, and I passed a
well-deserved encomium upon him with the cordial approval of
everybody. He was himself very much delighted with it. I tell
you this because you have often advised me in your letters to retain
the friendship of Sestius. I am writing this on the I2th of February
before daybreak; the day on which I am to dine with Pomponius
on the occasion of his wedding.

Our position in other respects is such as you used to cheer my
despondency by telling me it would be one of great dignity and
popularity: this is a return to old times for you and me effected,
my brother, by your patience, high character, loyalty, and, I may also
add, your conciliatory manners. The house of Licinius, near the
grove of Piso, has been taken for you. But, as I hope, in a few
months' time, after the ist of July, you will move into your own.
Some excellent tenants, the Lamiae, have taken your house in Carinae.
I have received no letter from you since the one dated Olbia. I am
anxious to hear how you are and what you find to amuse you, but
above all to see you yourself as soon as possible. Take care of your
health, my dear brother, and though it is winter time, yet reflect that
after all it is Sardinia that you are in.

15 February.

IX

To ATTICUS (RETURNING FROM EPIRUS)
ANTIUM, APRIL, 56 B.C.

IT will be delightful if you come to see us here. You will find
that Tyrannic has made a wonderfully good arrangement of my
books, the remains of which are better than I had expected. Still,
I wish you would send me a couple of your library slaves for
Tyrannio to employ as gluers, and in other subordinate work, and
tell them to get some fine parchment to make title-pieces, which
you Greeks, I think, call "sillybi." But all this is only if not incon-
venient to you. In any case, be sure you come yourself, if you can

LETTERS 101

halt for a while in such a place, and can persuade Pilia to accompany
you. For that is only fair, and Tulia is anxious that she should come.
My word! You have purchased a fine troop! Your gladiators, I
am told, fight superbly. If you had chosen to let them out you would
have cleared your expenses by the last two spectacles. But we will
talk about this later on. Be sure to come, and, as you love me, see
about the library slaves.

X

To L. LUCCEIUS
ARPINUM, APRIL, 56 B.C.

I HAVE often tried to say to you personally what I am about to
write, but was prevented by a kind of almost clownish bashfulness.
Now that I am not in your presence I shall speak out more boldly:
a letter does not blush. I am inflamed with an inconceivably ardent
desire, and one, as I think, of which I have no reason to be ashamed,
that in a history written by you my name should be conspicuous
and frequently mentioned with praise. And though you have often
shewn me that you meant to do so, yet I hope you will pardon my
impatience. For the style of your composition, though I had always
entertained the highest expectations of it, has yet surpassed my hopes,
and has taken such a hold upon me, or rather has so fired my
imagination, that I was eager to have my achievements as quickly as
possible put on record in your history. For it is not only the thought
of being spoken of by future ages that makes me snatch at what
seems a hope of immortality, but it is also the desire of fully enjoying
in my lifetime an authoritative expression of your judgment, or
a token of your kindness for me, or the charm of your genius. Not,
however, that while thus writing I am unaware under what heavy
burdens you are labouring in the portion of history you have under-
taken, and by this time have begun to write. But because I saw
that your history of the Italian and Civil Wars was now all but
finished, and because also you told me that you were already em-
barking upon the remaining portions of your work, I determined
not to lose my chance for the want of suggesting to you to consider
whether you preferred to weave your account of me into the main

IO2 CICERO

context of your history, or whether, as many Greek writers have
done Callisthenes, the Phocian War; Timaeus, the war of Pyrrhus;
Polybius, that of Numantia; all of whom separated the wars I have
named from their main narratives you would, like them, separate
the civil conspiracy from public and external wars. For my part,
I do not see that it matters much to my reputation, but it does
somewhat concern my impatience, that you should not wait till you
come to the proper place, but should at once anticipate the discussion
of that question as a whole and the history of that epoch. And at
the same time, if your whole thoughts are engaged on one incident
and one person, I can see in imagination how much fuller your
material will be, and how much more elaborately worked out. I am
quite aware, however, what little modesty I display, first, in imposing
on you so heavy a burden (for your engagements may well prevent
your compliance with my request), and in the second place, in asking
you to shew me off to advantage. What if those transactions are not
in your judgment so very deserving of commendation? Yet, after
all, a man who has once passed the border-line of modesty had
better put a bold face on it and be frankly impudent. And so I again
and again ask you outright, both to praise those actions of mine in
warmer terms than you perhaps feel, and in that respect to neglect
the laws of history. I ask you, too, in regard to the personal predilec-
tion, on which you wrote in a certain introductory chapter in the
most gratifying and explicit terms and by which you shew that
you were as incapable of being diverted as Xenophon's Hercules by
Pleasure not to go against it, but to yield to your affection for me
a little more than truth shall justify. But if I can induce you to
undertake this, you will have, I am persuaded, matter worthy of
your genius and your wealth of language. For from the beginning
of the conspiracy to my return from exile it appears to me that a
moderate-sized monograph might be composed, in which you will,
on the one hand, be able to utilize your special knowledge of civil
disturbances, either in unravelling the causes of the revolution or in
proposing remedies for evils, blaming meanwhile what you think
deserves denunciation, and establishing the righteousness of what
you approve by explaining the principles on which they rest: and
on the other hand, if you think it right to be more outspoken (as

LETTERS IO3

you generally do), you will bring out the perfidy, intrigues, and
treachery of many people towards me. For my vicissitudes will
supply you in your composition with much variety, which has in
itself a kind of charm, capable of taking a strong hold on the
imagination of readers, when you are the writer. For nothing is
better fitted to interest a reader than variety of circumstance and
vicissitudes of fortune, which, though the reverse of welcome to us
in actual experience, will make very pleasant reading: for the un-
troubled recollection of a past sorrow has a charm of its own. To
the rest of the world, indeed, who have had no trouble themselves,
and who look upon the misfortunes of others without any suffering
of their own, the feeling of pity is itself a source of pleasure. For
what man of us is not delighted, though feeling a certain compassion
too, with the death-scene of Epaminondas at Mantinea? He, you
know, did not allow the dart to be drawn from his body until he
had been told, in answer to his question, that his shield was safe,
so that in spite of the agony of his wound he died calmly and with
glory. Whose interest is not roused and sustained by the banishment
and return of Themistocles ? Truly the mere chronological record
of the annals has very little charm for us little more than the entries
in the fasti: but the doubtful and varied fortunes of a man, frequently
of eminent character, involve feelings of wonder, suspense, joy,
sorrow, hope, fear: if these fortunes are crowned with a glorious
death, the imagination is satisfied with the most fascinating delight
which reading can give. Therefore it will be more in accordance
with my wishes if you come to the resolution to separate from the
main body of your narrative, in which you embrace a continuous
history of events, what I may call the drama of my actions and
fortunes: for it includes varied acts, and shifting scenes both of
policy and circumstance. Nor am I afraid of appearing to lay snares
for your favour by flattering suggestions, when I declare that I
desire to be complimented and mentioned with praise by you above
all other writers. For you are not the man to be ignorant of your
own powers, or not to be sure that those who withhold their
admiration of you are more to be accounted jealous, than those who
praise you flatterers. Nor, again, am I so senseless as to wish to be
consecrated to an eternity of fame by one who, in so consecrating me,

104 CICERO

does not also gain for himself the glory which rightfully belongs to
genius. For the famous Alexander himself did not wish to be painted
by Apelles, and to have his statue made by Lysippus above all others,
merely from personal favour to them, but because he thought that
their art would be a glory at once to them and to himself. And,
indeed, those artists used to make images of the person known to
strangers: but if such had never existed, illustrious men would yet
be no less illustrious. The Spartan Agesilaus, who would not allow
a portrait of himself to be painted or a statue made, deserves to be
quoted as an example quite as much as those who have taken
trouble about such representations: for a single pamphlet of Xeno-
phon's in praise of that king has proved much more effective than
all the portraits and statues of them all. And, moreover, it will more
redound to my present exultation and the honour of my memory
to have found my way into your history, than if I had done so into
that of others, in this, that I shall profit not only by the genius of the
writer as Timoleon did by that of Timasus, Themistocles by that
of Herodotus but also by the authority of a man of a most illus-
trious and well-established character, and one well known and of
the first repute for his conduct in the most important and weighty
matters of state; so that I shall seem to have gained not only the
fame which Alexander on his visit to Sigeum said had been bestowed
on Achilles by Homer, but also the weighty testimony of a great
and illustrious man. For I like that saying of Hector in Naevius,
who not only rejoices that he is "praised," but adds, "and by one
who has himself been praised." But if I fail to obtain my request
from you, which is equivalent to saying, if you are by some means
prevented for I hold it to be out of the question that you would
refuse a request of mine I shall perhaps be forced to do what
certain persons have often found fault with, write my own panegyric,
a thing, after all, which has a precedent of many illustrious men. But
it will not escape your notice that there are the following drawbacks
in a composition of that sort : men are bound, when writing of them-
selves, both to speak with greater reserve of what is praiseworthy,
and to omit what calls for blame. Added to which such writing
carries less conviction, less weight; many people, in fine, carp at it,
and say that the heralds at the public games are more modest, for

LETTERS 105

after having placed garlands on the other recipients and proclaimed
their names in a loud voice, when their own turn comes to be pre-
sented with a garland before the games break up, they call in the
services of another herald, that they may not declare themselves vic-
tors with their own voice. I wish to avoid all this, and, if you under-
take my cause, I shall avoid it: and, accordingly, I ask you this favour.
But why, you may well ask, when you have already often assured me
that you intended to record in your book with the utmost minuteness
the policy and events of my consulship, do I now make this request
to you with such earnestness and in so many words? The reason
is to be found in that burning desire, of which I spoke at the be-
ginning of my letter, for something prompt: because I am in a
flutter of impatience, both that men should learn what I am from
your book, while I am still alive, and that I may myself in my life-
time have the full enjoyment of my little bit of glory. What you
intend doing on this subject I should like you to write me word, if
not troublesome to you. For if you do undertake the subject, I will
put together some notes of all occurrences: but if you put me off to
some future time, I will talk the matter over with you. Meanwhile,
do not relax your efforts, and thoroughly polish what you have
already on the stocks, and continue to love me.

XI

To M. FADIUS GALLUS
ROME, MAY, 55 B.C.

I HAD only just arrived from Arpinum when your letter was
delivered to me; and from the same bearer I received a letter from
Avianius, in which there was this most liberal offer, that when he
came to Rome he would enter my debt to him on whatever day
I chose. Pray put yourself in my place: is it consistent with your
modesty or mine, first to prefer a request as to the day, and then to
ask more than a year's credit ? But, my dear Gallus, everything would
have been easy, if you had bought the things I wanted, and only
up to the price that I wished. However, the purchases which, ac-
cording to your letter, you have made shall not only be ratified by
me, but with gratitude besides: for I fully understand that you have

CICERO

displayed zeal and affection in purchasing (because you thought
them worthy of me) things which pleased yourself a man, as I have
ever thought, of the most fastidious judgment in all matters of taste.
Still, I should like Damasippus to abide by his decision: for there
is absolutely none of those purchases that I care to have. But you,
being unacquainted with my habits, have bought four or five of
your selection at a price at which I do not value any statues in the
world. You compare your Bacchs with Metellus's Muses. Where
is the likeness? To begin with, I should never have considered the
Muses worth all that money, and I think all the Muses would have
approved my judgment: still, it would have been appropriate to a
library, and in harmony with my pursuits. But Bacchae! What
place is there in my house for them? But, you will say, they are
pretty. I know them very well and have often seen them. I would
have commissioned you definitely in the case of statues known to
me, if I had decided on them. The sort of statues that I am accus-
tomed to buy are such as may adorn a place in a palxstra after the
fashion of gymnasia. What, again, have I, the promoter of peace,
to do with a statue of Mars? I am glad there was not a statue of
Saturn also: for I should have thought these two statues had brought
me debt! I should have preferred some representation of Mercury:
I might then, I suppose, have made a more favourable bargain with
Arrianus. You say you meant the table-stand for yourself; well, if
you like it, keep it. But if you have changed your mind I will, of
course, have it. For the money you have laid out, indeed, I would
rather have purchased a place of call at Tarracina, to prevent my
being always a burden on my host. Altogether I perceive that the
fault is with my freedman, whom I had distinctly commissioned to
purchase certain definite things, and also with lunius, whom I think
you know, an intimate friend of Avianius. I have constructed some
new sitting-rooms in a miniature colonnade on my Tusculan prop-
erty. I want to ornament them with pictures: for if I take pleasure
in anything of that sort it is in painting. However, if I am to have
what you have bought, I should like you to inform me where they
are, when they are to be fetched, and by what kind of conveyance.
For if Damasippus doesn't abide by his decision, I shall look for
some would-be Damasippus, even at a loss.

LETTERS IO7

As to what you say about the house, as I was going out of town
I intrusted the matter to my daughter Tullia: for it was at the very
hour of my departure that I got your letter. I also discussed the
matter with your friend Nicias, because he is, as you know, intimate
with Cassius. On my return, however, before I got your last letter,
I asked Tullia what she had done. She said that she had approached
Licinia (though I think Cassius is not very intimate with his sister),
and that she at once said that she could venture, in the absence of her
husband (Dexius is gone to Spain), to change houses without his
being there and knowing about it. I am much gratified that you
should value association with me and my domestic life so highly
as, in the first place, to take a house which would enable you to
live not only near me, but absolutely with me, and, in the second
place, to be in such a hurry to make this change of residence. But,
upon my life, I do not yield to you in eagerness for that arrangement.
So I will try every means in my power. For I see the advantage to
myself, and, indeed, the advantages to us both. If I succeed in doing
anything, I will let you know. Mind you also write me word back on
everything, and let me know, if you please, when I am to expect you.

XII

To M. MARIUS (AT CUM^E)
ROME, OCTOBER (?), 55 B.C.

IF some bodily pain or weakness of health has prevented your
coming to the games, I put it down to fortune rather than your own
wisdom: but if you have made up your mind that these things
which the rest of the world admires are only worthy of contempt,
and, though your health would have allowed of it, you yet were
unwilling to come, then I rejoice at both facts that you were free
from bodily pain, and that you had the sound sense to disdain what
others causelessly admire. Only I hope that some fruit of your
leisure may be forthcoming, a leisure, indeed, which you had a
splendid opportunity of enjoying to the full, seeing that you were
left almost alone in your lovely country. For I doubt not that in
that study of yours, from which you have opened a window into

IO8 CICERO

the Stabian waters of the bay, and obtained a view of Misenum,
you have spent the morning hours of those days in light reading,
while those who left you there were watching the ordinary farces
half asleep. The remaining parts of the day, too, you spent in the
pleasures which you had yourself arranged to suit your own taste,
while we had to endure whatever had met with the approval of
Spurius Maxius. On the whole, if you care to know, the games
were most splendid, but not to your taste. I judge from my own.
For, to begin with, as a special honour to the occasion, those actors
had come back to the stage who, I thought, had left it for their own.
Indeed, your favourite, my friend /Esop, was in such a state that no
one could say a word against his retiring from the profession. On
beginning to recite the oath his voice failed him at the words "If
I knowingly deceive." Why should I go on with the story? You
know all about the rest of the games, which hadn't even that amount
of charm which games on a moderate scale generally have: for the
spectacle was so elaborate as to leave no room for cheerful enjoyment,
and I think you need feel no regret at having missed it. For
what is the pleasure of a train of six hundred mules in the "Clytem-
nestra," or three thousand bowls in the "Trojan Horse," or gay-
coloured armour of infantry and cavalry in some battle? These
things roused the admiration of the vulgar; to you they would have
brought no delight. But if during those days you listened to your
reader Protogenes, so long at least as he read anything rather than
my speeches, surely you had far greater pleasure than any one of us.
For I don't suppose you wanted to see Greek or Oscan plays,
especially as you can see Oscan farces in your senate-house over
there, while you are so far from liking Greeks, that you generally
won't even go along the Greek road to your villa. Why, again,
should I suppose you to care about missing the athletes, since you
disdained the gladiators? in which even Pompey himself confesses
that he lost his trouble and his pains. There remain the two wild-
beast hunts, lasting five days, magnificent nobody denies it and
yet, what pleasure can it be to a man of refinement, when either a
weak man is torn by an extremely powerful animal, or a splendid
animal is transfixed by a hunting spear? Things which, after all,
if worth seeing, you have often seen before; nor did I, who was

LETTERS IO9

present at the games, see anything the least new. The last day was
that of the elephants, on which there was a great deal of astonishment
on the part of the vulgar crowd, but no pleasure whatever. Nay,
there was even a certain feeling of compassion aroused by it, and
a kind of belief created that that animal has something in common
with mankind. However, for my part, during this day, while the
theatrical exhibitions were on, lest by chance you should think me
too blessed, I almost split my lungs in defending your friend
Caninius Gallus. But if the people were as indulgent to me as they
were to ^Esop, I would, by heaven, have been glad to abandon my
profession and live with you and others like us. The fact is I was
tired of it before, even when both age and ambition stirred me on,
and when I could also decline any defence that I didn't like; but
now, with things in the state that they are, there is no life worth
having. For, on the one hand, I expect no profit of my labour; and,
on the other, I am sometimes forced to defend men who have been
no friends to me, at the request of those to whom I am under obliga-
tions. Accordingly, I am on the look-out for every excuse for at
last managing my life according to my own taste, and I loudly
applaud and vehemently approve both you and your retired plan
of life: and as to your infrequent appearances among us, I am the
more resigned to that because, were you in Rome, I should be pre-
vented from enjoying the charm of your society, and so would you
of mine, if I have any, by the overpowering nature of my engage-
ments; from which, if I get any relief for entire release I don't
expect I will give even you, who have been studying nothing else
for many years, some hints as to what it is to live a life of cultivated
enjoyment. Only be careful to nurse your weak health and to con-
tinue your present care of it, so that you may be able to visit my
country houses and make excursions with me in my litter. I have
written you a longer letter than usual, from superabundance, not
of leisure, but of affection, because, if you remember, you asked me
in one of your letters to write you something to prevent you feeling
sorry at having missed the games. And if I have succeeded in that,
I am glad: if not, I yet console myself with this reflexion, that in
future you will both come to the games and come to see me, and
will not leave your hope of enjoyment dependent on my letters.

HO CICERO

XIII

To His BROTHER QUINTUS (IN THE COUNTRY)
ROME, FEBRUARY, 54 B.C.

YOUR note by its strong language has drawn out this letter. Foi
as to what actually occurred on the day of your start, it supplied me
with absolutely no subject for writing. But as when we are together
we are never at a loss for something to say, so ought our letters at
times to digress into loose chat. Well, then, to begin, the liberty of
the Tenedians has received short shrift, no one speaking for them
except myself, Bibulus, Calidius, and Favonius. A complimentary
reference to you was made by the legates from Magnesia and Sipy-
lum, they saying that you were the man who alone had resisted the
demand of L. Sestius Pansa. On the remaining days of this business
in the senate, if anything occurs which you ought to know, or even
if there is nothing, I will write you something every day. On the
i2th I will not fail you or Pomponius. The poems of Lucretius are
as you say with many flashes of genius, yet very technical. But
when you return, ... if you succeed in readtng the Empedodea of
Sallustius, I shall regard you as a hero, yet scarcely human.

XIV

To His BROTHER QUINTUS (IN BRITAIN)
ARPINUM AND ROME, 28 SEPTEMBER, 54 B.C.

AFTER extraordinarily hot weather I never remember greater heat
I have refreshed myself at Arpinum, and enjoyed the extreme
loveliness of the river during the days of the games, having left my
tribesmen under the charge of Philotimus. I was at Arcanum on
the loth of September. There I found Mescidius and Philoxenus,
and saw the water, for which they were making a course not far
from your villa, running quite nicely, especially considering the
extreme drought, and they said they were going to collect it in much
greater abundance. Everything is right with Herus. In your
Manilian property I came across Diphilus outdoing himself in
dilatoriness. Still, he had nothing left to construct, except baths, and

LETTERS III

a promenade, and an aviary. I liked that villa very much, because
its paved colonnade gives it an air of very great dignity. I never
appreciated this till now that the colonnade itself has been all laid
open, and the columns have been polished. It all depends and this
I will look to upon the stuccoing being prettily done. The pave-
ments seemed to be being well laid. Certain of the ceilings I did not
like, and ordered them to be changed. As to the place in which
they say that you write word that a small entrance hall is to be
built namely, in the colonnade I liked it better as it is. For I did
not think there was space sufficient for an entrance hall; nor is it
usual to have one, except in those buildings which have a larger
court; nor could it have bedrooms and apartments of that kind
attached to it. As it is, from the very beauty of its arched roof, it
will serve as an admirable summer room. However, if you think
differently, write back word as soon as possible. In the bath I have
moved the hot chamber to the other corner of the dressing-room,
because it was so placed that its steam-pipe was immediately under
the bedrooms. A fair-sized bedroom and a lofty winter one I admired
very much, for they were both spacious and well situated on the
side of the promenade nearest to the bath. Diphilus had placed the
columns out of the perpendicular, and not opposite each other.
These, of course, he shall take down; he will learn some day to use
the plumb-line and measure. On the whole, I hope Diphilus's work
will be completed in a few months: for Cxsius, who was with me
at the time, keeps a very sharp look-out upon him.

Thence I started straight along the via Vitularia to your Fufid-
ianum, the estate which we bought for you a few weeks ago at
Arpinum for 100,000 sesterces (about ^800). I never saw a shadier
spot in summer water springs in many parts of it, and abundant
into the bargain. In short, Czsius thought that you would easily
irrigate fifty iugera of the meadow-land. For my part, I can assure
you of this, which is more in my line, that you will have a villa
marvellously pleasant, with the addition of a fish-pond, spouting
fountains, a palcestra, and a shrubbery. I am told that you wish to
keep this Bovillz estate. You will determine as you think good.
Calvus said that, even if the control of the water were taken from you,
and the right of drawing it off were established by the vendor, and

112 CICERO

thus an easement were imposed on that property, we could yet main-
tain the price in case we wish to sell. He said that he had agreed with
you to do the work at three sesterces a foot, and that he had stepped
it, and made it three miles. It seemed to me more. But I will
guarantee that the money could nowhere be better laid out. I had
sent for Cillo from Venafrum, but on that very day four of his
fellow servants and apprentices had been crushed by the falling in
of a tunnel at Venafrum. On the I3th of September I was at
Laterium. I examined the road, which appeared to me to be so good
as to seem almost like a highroad, except a hundred and fifty paces
for I measured it myself from the little bridge at the temple of
Furina, in the direction of Satricum. There they had put down dust,
not gravel (this shall be changed), and that part of the road is a very
steep incline. But I understood that it could not be taken in any
other direction, particularly as you did not wish it to go through
the property of Locusta or Varro. The latter alone had made the
road very well where it skirted his own property. Locusta hadn't
touched it; but I will call on him at Rome, and think I shall be
able to stir him up, and at the same time I think I shall ask M.
Tarus, who is now at Rome, and whom I am told promised to
allow you to do so, about making a watercourse through his property.
I much approved of your steward Nicephorius and I asked him
what orders you had given about that small building at Laterium,
about which you spoke to me. He told me in answer that he had
himself contracted to do the work for sixteen sestertia (about ^128),
but that you had afterwards made many additions to the work,
but nothing to the price, and that he had therefore given it up. I
quite approve, by Hercules, of your making the additions you had
determined upon; although the villa as it stands seems to have the
air of a philosopher, meant to rebuke the extravagance of other
villas. Yet, after all, that addition will be pleasing. I praised your
landscape gardener: he has so covered everything with ivy, both the
foundation-wall of the villa and the spaces between the columns of
the walk, that, upon my word, those Greek statues seemed to be
engaged in fancy gardening, and to be shewing off the ivy. Finally,
nothing can be cooler or more mossy than the dressing-room of the
bath. That is about all I have to say about country matters. The

LETTERS 113

gardener, indeed, as well as Philotimus and Cincius are pressing on
the ornamentation of your town house; but I also often look in
upon it myself, as I can do without difficulty. Wherefore don't be
at all anxious about that.

As to your always asking me about your son, of course I "excuse
you"; but I must ask you to "excuse" me also, for I don't allow
that you love him more than I do. And oh, that he had been with
me these last few days at Arpinum, as he had himself set his heart
on being, and as I had no less done! As to Pomponia, please write
and say that, when I go out of town anywhere, she is to come with
me and bring the boy. I'll do wonders with him, if I get him to
myself when I am at leisure : for at Rome there is no time to breathe.
You know I formerly promised to do so for nothing. What do you
expect with such a reward as you promise me ? I now come to your
letters which I received in several packets when I was at Arpinum.
For I received three from you in one day, and, indeed, as it seemed,
despatched by you at the same time one of considerable length, in
which your first point was that my letter to you was dated earlier
than that to Caesar. Oppius at times cannot help this : the reason is
that, having settled to send letter-carriers, and having received a
letter from me, he is hindered by something turning up, and obliged
to despatch them later than he had intended; and I don't take the
trouble to have the day altered on a letter which I have once handed
to him. You write about Caesar's extreme affection for us. This
affection you must on your part keep warm, and I for mine will
endeavour to increase it by every means in my power. About
Pompey, I am carefully acting, and shall continue to act, as you
advise. That my permission to you to stay longer is a welcome one,
though I grieve at your absence and miss you exceedingly, I am yet
partly glad. What you can be thinking of in sending for such people
as Hippodamus and some others, I do not understand. There is not
one of those fellows that won't expect a present from you equal
to a suburban estate. However, there is no reason for your class-
ing my friend Trebatius with them. I sent him to Caesar, and
Caesar has done all I expected. If he has not done quite what
he expected himself, I am not bound to make it up to him, and I
in like manner free and absolve you from all claims on his part.

114 CICERO

Your remark, that you are a greater favourite with Cassar every
day, is a source of undying satisfaction to me. As to Balbus, who,
as you say, promotes that state of things, he is the apple of my eye.
I am indeed glad that you and my friend Trebonius like each other.
As to what you say about the military tribuneship, I, indeed, asked
for it definitely for Curtius, and Caesar wrote back definitely to
say that there was one at Curtius's service, and chided me for my
modesty in making the request. If I have asked one for anyone
else as I told Oppius to write and tell Caesar I shall not be at
all annoyed by a refusal, since those who pester me for letters are
annoyed at a refusal from me. I like Curtius, as I have told him,
not only because you asked me to do so, but from the character
you gave of him; for from your letter I have gathered the zeal
he shewed for my restoration. As for the British expedition, I
conclude from your letter that we have no occasion either for
fear or exultation. As to public affairs, about which you wish
Tiro to write to you, I have written to you hitherto somewhat
more carelessly than usual, because I knew that all events, small
or great, were reported to Caesar. I have now answered your long-
est letter.

Now hear what I have to say to your small one. The first point
is about Clodius's letter to Caesar. In that matter I approve of
Caesar's policy, in not having given way to your request so far as
to write a single word to that Fury. The next thing is about the
speech of Calventius "Marius." I am surprised at your saying that
you think I ought to answer it, particularly as, while no one is
likely to read that speech, unless I write an answer to it, every
schoolboy learns mine against him as an exercise. My books, all of
which you are expecting, I have begun, but I cannot finish them
for some days yet. The speeches for Scaurus and Plancius which
you clamour for I have finished. The poem to Caesar, which I
had begun, I have cut short. I will write what you ask me for,
since your poetic springs are running dry, as soon as I have time.

Now for the third letter. It is very pleasant and welcome news
to hear from you that Balbus is soon coming to Rome, and so well
accompanied! and will stay with me continuously till the i5th of
May. As to your exhorting me in the same letter, as in many

LETTERS 115

previous ones, to ambition and labour, I shall, of course, do as you
say: but when am I to enjoy any real life?

Your fourth letter reached me on the i3th of September, dated
on the loth of August from Britain. In it there was nothing new
except about your Erigona, and if I get that from Oppius I will
write and tell you what I think of it. I have no doubt I shall like
it. Oh, yes! I had almost forgotten to remark as to the man who,
you say in your letter, had written to Caesar about the applause
given to Milo I am not unwilling that Cassar should think that
it was as warm as possible. And in point of fact it was so, and yet
that applause, which is given to him, seems in a certain sense to
be given to me.

I have also received a very old letter, but which was late in
coming into my hands, in which you remind me about the temple
of Tellus and the colonnade of Catulus. Both of these matters are
being actively carried out. At the temple of Tellus I have even
got your statue placed. So, again, as to your reminder about a
suburban villa and gardens, I was never very keen for one, and
now my town house has all the charm of such a pleasure-ground.
On my arrival in Rome on the i8th of September I found the
roof on your house finished : the part over the sitting-rooms, which
you did not wish to have many gables, now slopes gracefully towards
the roof of the lower colonnade. Our boy, in my absence, did
not cease working with his rhetoric master. You have no reason
for being anxious about his education, for you know his ability,
and I see his application. Everything else I take it upon myself
to guarantee, with full consciousness that I am bound to make it
good.

As yet there are three parties prosecuting Gabinius: first,
L. Lentulus, son of the flamen, who has entered a prosecution for lese
majeste; secondly, Tib. Nero, with good names at the back of his
indictment; thirdly, C. Memmius the tribune in conjunction with
L. Capito. He came to the walls of the city on the i9th of September,
undignified and neglected to the last degree. But in the present
state of the law courts I do not venture to be confident of anything.
As Cato is unwell, he has not yet been formally indicted for extortion.
Pompey is trying hard to persuade me to be reconciled to him,

Il6 CICERO

but as yet he has not succeeded at all, nor, if I retain a shred of
liberty, will he succeed. I am very anxious for a letter from you.
You say that you have been told that I was a party to the coalition
of the consular candidates it is a lie. The compacts made in that
coalition, afterwards made public by Memmius, were of such a
nature that no loyal man ought to have been a party to them; nor
at the same time was it possible for me to be a party to a coalition
from which Messalla was excluded, who is thoroughly satisfied
with my conduct in every particular, as also, I think, is Memmius.
To Domitius himself I have rendered many services which he
desired and asked of me. I have put Scaurus under a heavy obliga-
tion by my defence of him. It is as yet very uncertain both when
the elections will be and who will be consuls.

Just as I was folding up this epistle letter-carriers arrived from
you and Caesar (20th September) after a journey of twenty days.
How anxious I was! How painfully I was affected by Caesar's
most kind letter! But the kinder it was, the more sorrow did his
loss occasion me. But to turn to your letter: To begin with, I
reiterate my approval of your staying on, especially as, according
to your account, you have consulted Caesar on the subject. I wonder
that Oppius has anything to do with Publius, for I advised against
it. Farther on in your letter you say that I am going to be made
legatus to Pompey on the i3th of September: I have heard nothing
about it, and I wrote to Caesar to tell him that neither Vibullius
nor Oppius had delivered his message to Pompey about my remain-
ing at home. Why, I know not. However, it was I who restrained
Oppius from doing so, because it was Vibullius who should take
the leading part in that matter: for with him Caesar had com-
municated personally, with Oppius only by letter. I indeed can
have no "second thoughts" in matters connected with Caesar. He
comes next after you and our children in my regard, and not much
after. I think I act in this with deliberate judgment, for I have by
this time good cause for it, yet warm personal feeling no doubt
does influence me also.

Just as I had written these last words which are by my own
hand your boy came in to dine with me, as Pomponia was dining
out. He gave me your letter to read, which he had received shortly

LETTERS 117

before a truly Aristophanic mixture of jest and earnest, with which
I was greatly charmed. He gave me also your second letter, in
which you bid him cling to my side as a mentor. How delighted
he was with those letters! And so was I. Nothing could be more
attractive than that boy, nothing more affectionate to me! This,
to explain its being in another handwriting, I dictated to Tiro
while at dinner.

Your letter gratified Annalis very much, as shewing that you took
an active interest in his concerns, and yet assisted him with exceed-
ingly candid advice. Publius Servilius the elder, from a letter which
he said he had received from Caesar, declares himself highly obliged
to you for having spoken with the greatest kindness and earnestness
of his devotion to Caesar. After my return to Rome from Arpinum
I was told that Hippodamus had started to join you. I cannot
say that I was surprised at his having acted so discourteously as to
start to join you without a letter from me: I only say this, that I
was annoyed. For I had long resolved, from an expression in your
letter, that if I had anything I wished conveyed to you with more
than usual care, I should give it to him: for, in truth, into a letter
like this, which I send you in an ordinary way, I usually put
nothing that, if it fell into certain hands, might be a source of
annoyance. I reserve myself for Minucius and Salvius and Labeo.
Labeo will either be starting late or will stay here altogether.
Hippodamus did not even ask me whether he could do anything
for me. T. Penarius sends me a kind letter about you: says that
he is exceedingly charmed with your literary pursuits, conversation,
and above all by your dinners. He was always a favourite of mine,
and I see a good deal of his brother. Wherefore continue, as you
have begun, to admit the young man to your intimacy.

From the fact of this letter having been in hand during many
days, owing to the delay of the letter-carriers, I have jotted down
in it many various things at odd times, as, for instance, the follow-
ing: Titus Anicius has mentioned to me more than once that he
would not hesitate to buy a suburban property for you, if he found
one. In these remarks of his I find two things surprising: first
that when you write to him about buying a suburban property,
you not only don't write to me to that effect, but write even in

Il8 CICERO

a contrary sense; and, secondly, that in writing to him you totally
forget his letters which you shewed me at Tusculum, and as totally
the rule of Epicharmus, "Notice how he has treated another": in
fact, that you have quite forgotten, as I think, the lesson conveyed
by the expression of his face, his conversation, and his spirit. But
this is your concern. As to a suburban property, be sure to let me
know your wishes, and at the same time take care that that fellow
doesn't get you into trouble. What else have I to say? Anything?
Yes, there is this: Gabinius entered the city by night on the 2yth
of September and to-day, at two o'clock, when he ought to have
appeared on his trial for lese majeste, in accordance with the edict
of C. Alfius, he was all but crushed to the earth by a great and
unanimous demonstration of the popular hatred. Nothing could
exceed his humiliating position. However, Piso comes next to him.
So I think of introducing a marvellous episode into my second
book Apollo declaring in the council of the gods what sort of
return that of the two commanders was to be, one of whom had
lost, and the other sold his army. From Britain I have a letter of
Caesar's dated the ist of September, which reached me on the 27th,
satisfactory enough as far as the British expedition is concerned,
in which, to prevent my wondering at not getting one from you,
he tells me that you were not with him when he reached ths coast.
To that letter I made no reply, not even a formal congratulation,
on account of his mourning. Many, many wishes, dear brother, for
your health.

XV

To P. LENTULUS SPINTHER (IN CILICIA)
ROME, OCTOBER, 54 B.C.

M. CICERO desires his warmest regards to P. Lentulus, imperator.
Your letter was very gratifying to me, from which I gathered that
you fully appreciated my devotion to you: for why use the word
"kindness," when even the word "devotion" itself, with all its
solemn and holy associations, seems too weak to express my obliga-
tions to you? As for your saying that my services to you are
gratefully accepted, it is you who in your overflowing affection

LETTERS 119

make things, which cannot be omitted without criminal negligence,
appear deserving of even gratitude. However, my feelings towards
you would have been much more fully known and conspicuous,
if, during all this time that we have been separated, we had been
together, and together at Rome. For precisely in what you declare
your intention of doing what no one is more capable of doing,
and what I confidently look forward to from you that is to say,
in speaking in the senate, and in every department of public life
and political activity, we should together have been in a very strong
position (what my feelings and position are in regard to politics
I will explain shortly, and will answer the questions you ask),
and at any rate I should have found in you a supporter, at once
most warmly attached and endowed with supreme wisdom, while
in me you would have found an adviser, perhaps not the most unskil-
ful in the world, and at least both faithful and devoted to your inter-
ests. However, for your own sake, of course, I rejoice, as I am bound
to do, that you have been greeted with the title of imperator, and are
holding your province and victorious army after a successful cam-
paign. But certainly, if you had been here, you would have enjoyed
to a fuller extent and more directly the benefit of the services which
I am bound to render you. Moreover, in taking vengeance on those
whom you know in some cases to be your enemies, because you
championed the cause of my recall, in others to be jealous of the
splendid position and renown which that measure brought you,
I should have done you yeoman's service as your associate. How-
ever, that perpetual enemy of his own friends, who, in spite of
having been honoured with the highest compliments on your part,
has selected you of all people for the object of his impotent and
enfeebled violence, has saved me the trouble by punishing himself.
For he has made attempts, the disclosure of which has left him
without a shred, not only of political position, but even of freedom
of action. And though I should have preferred that you should
have gained your experience in my case alone, rather than in your
own also, yet in the midst of my regret I am glad that you have
learnt what the fidelity of mankind is worth, at no great cost to
yourself, which I learnt at the price of excessive pain. And I think
that I have now an opportunity presented me, while answering the

120 CICERO

questions you have addressed to me, of also explaining my entire
position and view. You say in your letter that you have been in-
formed that I have become reconciled to Caesar and Appius, and
you add that you have no fault to find with that. But you express
a wish to know what induced me to defend and compliment
Vatinius. In order to make my explanation plainer I must go a
little farther back in the statement of my policy and its grounds.

Well, Lentulus! At first after the success of your efforts for my
recall I looked upon myself as having been restored not alone to
my friends, but to the Republic also; and seeing that I owed you
an affection almost surpassing belief, and every kind of service,
however great and rare, that could be bestowed on your person, I
thought that to the Republic, which had much assisted you in
restoring me, I at least was bound to entertain the feeling which
I had in old times shewed merely from the duty incumbent on all
citizens alike, and not as an obligation incurred by some special
kindness to myself. That these were my sentiments I declared to
the senate when you were consul, and you had yourself a full view
of them in our conversations and discussions. Yet from the very
first my feelings were hurt by many circumstances, when, on your
mooting the question of the full restoration of my position, I de-
tected the covert hatred of some and the equivocal attachment of
others. For you received no support from either in regard to my
monuments, or the illegal violence by which, in common with my
brother, I had been driven from my house; nor, by heaven, did
they shew the good will which I had expected in regard to those
matters which, though necessary to me owing to the shipwreck
of my fortune, were yet regarded by me as least valuable I mean
as to indemnifying me for my losses by decree of the senate. And
though I saw all this for it was not difficult to see yet their
present conduct did not affect me with so much bitterness as what
they had done for me did with gratitude. And therefore, though
according to your own assertion and testimony I was under very
great obligation to Pompey, and though I loved him not only for
his kindness, but also from my own feelings, and, so to speak, from
my unbroken admiration of him, nevertheless, without taking any
account of his wishes, I abode by all my old opinions in politics.

LETTERS 121

With Pompey sitting in court, upon his having entered the city to
give evidence in favour of Sestius, and when the witness Vatinius
had asserted that, moved by the good fortune and success of Caesar,
I had begun to be his friend, I said that I preferred the fortune of
Bibulus, which he thought a humiliation, to the triumphs and
victories of everybody else; and I said during the examination of
the same witness, in another part of my speech, that the same men
had prevented Bibulus from leaving his house as had forced me
from mine: my whole cross-examination, indeed, was nothing but
a denunciation of his tribuneship; and in it I spoke throughout
with the greatest freedom and spirit about violence, neglect of
omens, grants of royal titles. Nor, indeed, in the support of this
view is it only of late that I have spoken : I have done so consistently
on several occasions in the senate. Nay, even in the consulship
of Marcellinus and Philippus, on the 5th of April the senate voted
on my motion that the question of the Campanian land should be
referred to a full meeting of the senate on the I5th of May. Could
I more decidedly invade the stronghold of his policy, or shew more
clearly that I forgot my own present interests, and remembered
my former political career? On my delivery of this proposal a great
impression was made on the minds not only of those who were
bound to have been impressed, but also of those of whom I had
never expected it. For, after this decree had passed in accordance
with my motion, Pompey, without shewing the least sign of being
offended with me, started for Sardinia and Africa, and in the
course of that journey visited Cassar at Luca. There Caesar com-
plained a great deal about my motion, for he had already seen
Crassus at Ravenna also, and had been irritated by him against me.
It was well known that Pompey was much vexed at this, as I was
told by others, but learnt most definitely from my brother. For
when Pompey met him in Sardinia, a few days after leaving Luca,
he said: "You are the very man I want to see; nothing could have
happened more conveniently. Unless you speak very strongly to
your brother Marcus, you will have to pay up what you guaranteed
on his behalf." I need not go on. He grumbled a great deal:
mentioned his own services to me: recalled what he had again and
again said to my brother himself about the "acts" of Caesar, and

122 CICERO

what my brother had undertaken in regard to me; and called my
brother himself to witness that what he had done in regard to my
recall he had done with the consent of Caesar: and asked him to
commend to me the latter's policy and claims, that I should not
attack, even if I would not or could not support them. My brother
having conveyed these remarks to me, and Pompey having, never-
theless, sent Vibullius to me with a message, begging me not to
commit myself on the question of the Campanian land till his
return, I reconsidered my position and begged the state itself, as
it were, to allow me, who had suffered and done so much for it,
to fulfil the duty which gratitude to my benefactors and the pledge
which my brother had given demanded, and to suffer one whom
it had ever regarded as an honest citizen to shew himself an
honest man. Moreover, in regard to all those motions and speeches
of mine which appeared to be giving offence to Pompey, the re-
marks of a particular set of men, whose names you must surely
guess, kept on being reported to me; who, while in public affairs
they were really in sympathy with my policy, and had always been
so, yet said that they were glad that Pompey was dissatisfied with
me, and that Caesar would be very greatly exasperated against me.
This in itself was vexatious to me: but much more so was the fact
that they used, before my very eyes, so to embrace, fondle, make much
of, and kiss my enemy mine do I say? rather the enemy of the
laws, of the law courts, of peace, of his country, of all loyal men!
that they did not indeed rouse my bile, for I have utterly lost all
that, but imagined they did. In these circumstances, having, as
far as is possible for human prudence, thoroughly examined my
whole position, and having balanced the items of the account, I
arrived at a final result of all my reflexions, which, as well as I can,
I will now briefly put before you.

If I had seen the Republic in the hands of bad or profligate citizens,
as we know happened during the supremacy of Cinna, and on
some other occasions, I should not under the pressure, I don't say
of rewards, which are the last things to influence me, but even of
danger, by which, after all, the bravest men are moved, have attached
myself to their party, not even if their services to me had been of
the very highest kind. As it is, seeing that the leading statesman

LETTERS 123

in the Republic was Pompey, a man who had gained this power
and renown by the most eminent services to the state and the most
glorious achievements, and one of whose position I had been a
supporter from my youth up, and in my praetorship and consulship
an active promoter also, and seeing that this same statesman had
assisted me, in his own person by the weight of his influence and
the expression of his opinion, and, in conjunction with you, by his
counsels and zeal, and that he regarded my enemy as his own
supreme enemy in the state I did not think that I need fear the
reproach of inconsistency, if in some of my senatorial votes I some-
what changed my standpoint, and contributed my zeal to the pro-
motion of the dignity of a most distinguished man, and one to
whom I am under the highest obligations. In this sentiment I had
necessarily to include Caesar, as you see, for their policy and position
were inseparably united. Here I was greatly influenced by two
things the old friendship which you know that I and my brother
Quintus have had with Cassar, and his own kindness and liberality,
of which we have recently had clear and unmistakable evidence
both by his letters and his personal attentions. I was also strongly
affected by the Republic itself, which appeared to me to demand,
especially considering Caesar's brilliant successes, that there should
be no quarrel maintained with these men, and indeed to forbid it
in the strongest manner possible. Moreover, while entertaining these
feelings, I was above all shaken by the pledge which Pompey had
given for me to Caesar, and my brother to Pompey. Besides, I was
forced to take into consideration the state maxim so divinely ex-
pressed by our master Plato "Such as are the chief men in a
republic, such are ever wont to be the other citizens." I called to
mind that in my consulship, from the very ist of January, such a
foundation was laid of encouragement for the senate, that no one
ought to have been surprised that on the 5th of December there
was so much spirit and such commanding influence in that house.
I also remember that when I became a private citizen up to the
consulship of Caesar and Bibulus, when the opinions expressed by
me had great weight in the senate, the feeling among all the loyalists
was invariable. Afterwards, while you were holding the province
of hither Spain with imperium and the Republic had no genuine

124 CICERO

consuls, but mere hucksters of provinces, mere slaves and agents af
sedition, an accident threw my head as an apple of discord into
the midst of contending factions and civil broils. And in that hour
of danger, though a unanimity was displayed on the part of the
senate that was surprising, on the part of all Italy surpassing belief,
and of all the loyalists unparalleled, in standing forth in my defence,
I will not say what happened for the blame attaches to many,
and is of various shades of turpitude I will only say briefly that
it was not the rank and file, but the leaders, that played me false.
And in this matter, though some blame does attach to those who
failed to defend me, no less attaches to those who abandoned me:
and if those who were frightened deserve reproach, if there are
such, still more are those to be blamed who pretended to be fright-
ened. At any rate, my policy is justly to be praised for refusing to
allow my fellow citizens (preserved by me and ardently desiring
to preserve me) to be exposed while bereft of leaders to armed slaves,
and for preferring that it should be made manifest how much force
there might be in the unanimity of the loyalists, if they had been
permitted to champion my cause before I had fallen, when after
that fall they had proved strong enough to raise me up again. And
the real feelings of these men you not only had the penetration
to see, when bringing forward my case, but the power to encourage
and keep alive. In promoting which measure I will not merely
not deny, but shall always remember also and gladly proclaim it
you found certain men of the highest rank more courageous in
securing my restoration than they had been in preserving me from
my fall: and, if they had chosen to maintain that frame of mind,
they would have recovered their own commanding position along
with my salvation. For when the spirit of the loyalists had been
renewed by your consulship, and they had been roused from their
dismay by the extreme firmness and rectitude of your official con-
duct; when, above all, Pompey's support had been secured; and
when Caesar, too, with all the prestige of his brilliant achievements,
after being honoured with unique and unprecedented marks of dis-
tinction and compliments by the senate, was now supporting the
dignity of the house, there could have been no opportunity for a
disloyal citizen of outraging the Republic.

LETTERS 125

But now notice, I beg, what actually ensued. First of all, that
intruder upon the women's rites, who had shewn no more respect
for the Bona Dea than for his three sisters, secured immunity by
the votes of those men who, when a tribune wished by a legal
action to exact penalties from a seditious citizen by the agency of
the loyalists, deprived the Republic of what would have been here-
after a most splendid precedent for the punishment of sedition.
And these same persons, in the case of the monument, which was
not mine, indeed for it was not erected from the proceeds of spoils
won by me, and I had nothing to do with it beyond giving out
the contract for its construction well, they allowed this monument
of the senate's to have branded upon it the name of a public enemy,
and an inscription written in blood. That those men wished my
safety rouses my liveliest gratitude, but I could have wished that
they had not chosen to take my bare safety into consideration, like
doctors, but, like trainers, my strength and complexion also! As
it is, just as Apelles perfected the head and bust of his Venus with
the most elaborate art, but left the rest of her body in the rough,
so certain persons only took pains with my head, and left the rest
of my body unfinished and unworked. Yet in this matter I have
falsified the expectation, not only of the jealous, but also of the
downright hostile, who formerly conceived a wrong opinion from
the case of Quintus Metellus, son of Lucius the most energetic and
gallant man in the world, and in my opinion of surpassing courage
and firmness who, people say, was much cast down and dispirited
after his return from exile. Now, in the first place, we are asked
to believe that a man who accepted exile with entire willingness and
remarkable cheerfulness, and never took any pains at all to get
recalled, was crushed in spirit about an affair in which he had
shewn more firmness and constancy than anyone else, even than
the pre-eminent M. Scaurus himself! But, again, the account they
had received, or rather the conjectures they were indulging in about
him, they now transferred to me, imagining that I should be more
than usually broken in spirit: whereas, in fact, the Republic was
inspiring me with even greater courage than I had ever had before,
by making it plain that I was the one citizen it could not do with-
out; and by the fact that while a bill proposed by only one tribune

126 CICERO

had recalled Metellus, the whole state had joined as one man in
recalling me the senate leading the way, the whole of Italy follow-
ing after, eight of the tribunes publishing the bill, a consul putting
the question at the centuriate assembly, all orders and individuals
pressing it on, in fact, with all the forces at its command. Nor is it
the case that I afterwards made any pretension, or am making any
at this day, which can justly offend anyone, even the most malev-
olent: my only effort is that I may not fail either my friends or
those more remotely connected with me in either active service,
or counsel, or personal exertion. This course of life perhaps
offends those who fix their eyes on the glitter and show of my
professional position, but are unable to appreciate its anxieties and
laboriousness.

Again, they make no concealment of their dissatisfaction on the
ground that in the speeches which I make in the senate in praise
of Czsar I am departing from my old policy. But while giving
explanations on the points which I put before you a short time ago,
I will not keep till the last the following, which I have already
touched upon. You will not find, my dear Lentulus, the sentiments
of the loyalists the same as you left them strengthened by my con-
sulship, suffering relapse at intervals afterwards, crushed down
before your consulship, revived by you: they have now been aban-
doned by those whose duty it was to have maintained them: and
this fact they, who in the old state of things as it existed in our day
used to be called Optimates, not only declare by look and expression
of countenance, by which a false pretence is easiest supported, but
have proved again and again by their actual sympathies and votes.
Accordingly, the entire view and aim of wise citizens, such as I wish
both to be and to be reckoned, must needs have undergone a
change. For that is the maxim of that same great Plato, whom I
emphatically regard as my master: "Maintain a political controversy
only so far as you can convince your fellow citizens of its justice:
never offer violence to parent or fatherland." He, it is true, alleges
this as his motive for having abstained from politics, because, having
found the Athenian people all but in its dotage, and seeing that it
could not be ruled by persuasion, or by anything short of compulsion,
while he doubted the possibility of persuasion, he looked upon com-

LETTERS 127

pulsion as criminal. My position was different in this: as the people
was not in its dotage, nor the question of engaging in politics still
an open one for me, I was bound hand and foot. Yet I rejoiced that
I was permitted in one and the same cause to support a policy at
once advantageous to myself and acceptable to every loyalist. An
additional motive was Caesar's memorable and almost superhuman
kindness to myself and my brother, who thus would have deserved
my support whatever he undertook; while as it is, considering his
great success and his brilliant victories, he would seem, even if he
had not behaved to me as he has, to claim a panegyric from me. For
I would have you believe that, putting you aside, who were the
authors of my recall, there is no one by whose good offices I would
not only confess, but would even rejoice, to have been so much
bound.

Having explained this matter to you, the questions you ask about
Vatinius and Crassus are easy to answer. For, since you remark
about Appius, as about Czsar, "that you have no fault to find," I can
only say that I am glad you approve my policy. But as to Vatinius, in
the first place there had been in the interval a reconciliation effected
through Pompey, immediately after his election to the praetorship,
though I had, it is true, impugned his candidature in some very
strong speeches in the senate, and yet not so much for the sake of
attacking him as of defending and complimenting Cato. Again, later
on, there followed a very pressing request from Caesar that I should
undertake his defence. But my reason for testifying to his character
I beg you will not ask, either in the case of this defendant or of
others, lest I retaliate by asking you the same question when you
come home: though I can do so even before you return: for remem-
ber for whom you sent a certificate of character from the ends of the
earth. However, don't be afraid, for those same persons are praised
by myself, and will continue to be so. Yet, after all, there was also
the motive spurring me on to undertake his defence, of which, dur-
ing the trial, when I appeared for him, I remarked that I was doing
just what the parasite in the Eiiniichns advised the captain to do:

"As oft as she names Phzdria, you retort
With Pamphila. If ever she suggest,
'Do let us have in Phardria to our revel:'

128 CICERO

Quoth you, 'And let us call on Pamphila
To sing a song.' If she shall praise his looks,
Do you praise hers to match them: and, in fine,
Give tit for tat, that you may sting her soul."

So I asked the jurors, since certain men of high rank, who, had also
done me very great favours, were much enamoured of my enemy,
and often under my very eyes in the senate now took him aside in
grave consultation, now embraced him familiarly and cheerfully
since these men had their Publius, to grant me another Publius, in
whose person I might repay a slight attack by a moderate retort.
And, indeed, I am often as good as my word, with the applause of
gods and men. So much for Vatinius. Now about Crassus. I thought
I had done much to secure his gratitude in having, for the sake of the
general harmony, wiped out by a kind of voluntary act of oblivion
all his very serious injuries, when he suddenly undertook the defence
of Gabinius, whom only a few days before he had attacked with the
greatest bitterness. Nevertheless, I should have borne that, if he had
done so without casting any offensive reflections on me. But on his
attacking me, though I was only arguing and not inveighing against
him, I fired up not only, I think, with the passion of the moment for
that perhaps would not have been so hot but the smothered wrath
at his many wrongs to me, of which I thought I had wholly got rid,
having, unconsciously to myself, lingered in my soul, it suddenly
shewed itself in full force. And it was at this precise time that
certain persons (the same whom I frequently indicate by a sign or
hint), while declaring that they had much enjoyed my outspoken
style, and had never before fully realized that I was restored to the
Republic in all my old character, and when my conduct of that
controversy had gained me much credit outside the house also, began
saying that they were glad both that he was now my enemy, and
that those who were involved with him would never be my friends.
So when their ill-natured remarks were reported to me by men of
most respectable character, and when Pompey pressed me as he had
never done before to be reconciled to Crassus, and Caesar wrote to
say that he was exceedingly grieved at that quarrel, I took into con-
sideration not only my circumstances, but my natural inclination:
and Crassus, that our reconciliation might, as it were, be attested to

LETTERS 129

the Roman people, started for his province, it might almost be said,
from my hearth. For he himself named a day and dined with me in
the suburban villa of my son-in-law Crassipes. On this account, as
you say that you have been told, I supported his cause in the senate,
which I had undertaken on Pompey's strong recommendation, as I
was bound in honour to do.

I have now told you with what motives I have supported each
measure and cause, and what my position is in politics as far as I
take any part in them: and I would wish you to make sure of this
that I should have entertained the same sentiments, if I had been
still perfectly uncommitted and free to choose. For I should not have
thought it right to fight against such overwhelming power, nor to
destroy the supremacy of the most distinguished citizens, even if it
had been possible; nor, again, should I have thought myself bound to
abide by the same view, when circumstances were changed and the
feelings of the loyalists altered, but rather to bow to circumstances.
For the persistence in the same view has never been regarded as a
merit in men eminent for their guidance of the helm of state; but
as in steering a ship one secret of the art is to run before the storm,
even if you cannot make the harbour; yet, when you can do so by
tacking about, it is folly to keep to the course you have begun rather
than by changing it to arrive all the same at the destination you
desire: so while we all ought in the administration of the state to
keep always in view the object I have very frequently mentioned,
peace combined with dignity, we are not bound always to use the
same language, but to fix our eyes on the same object. Wherefore, as
I laid down a little while ago, if I had had as free a hand as possible
in everything, I should yet have been no other than I now am in
politics. When, moreover, I am at once induced to adopt these senti-
ments by the kindness of certain persons, and driven to do so by the
injuries of others, I am quite content to think and speak about public
affairs as I conceive best conduces to the interests both of myself and
of the Republic. Moreover, I make this declaration the more openly
and frequently, both because my brother Quintus is Caesar's legate,
and because no word of mine, however trivial, to say nothing of any
act, in support of Caesar has ever transpired, which he has not
received with such marked gratitude as to make me look upon myself

I3O CICERO

as closely bound to him. Accordingly, I have the advantage of his
popularity, which you know to be very great, and his material
resources, which you know to be immense, as though they were my
own. Nor do I think that I could in any other way have frustrated
the plots of unprincipled persons against me, unless I had now com-
bined with those protections, which I have always possessed, the
good will also of the men in power. I should, to the best of my belief,
have followed this same line of policy even if I had had you here.
For I well know the reasonableness and soberness of your judgment:
I know your mind, while warmly attached to me, to be without a
tinge of malevolence to others, but on the contrary as open and
candid as it is great and lofty. I have seen certain persons conduct
themselves towards you as you might have seen the same persons
conduct themselves towards me. The same things that have annoyed
me would certainly have annoyed you. But whenever I shall have
the enjoyment of your presence, you will be the wise critic of all my
plans: you who took thought for my safety will also do so for my
dignity. Me, indeed, you will have as the partner and associate in all
your actions, sentiments, wishes in fact, in everything; nor shall I
ever in all my life have any purpose so steadfastly before me as that
you should rejoice more and more warmly every day that you did me
such eminent service.

As to your request that I would send you any books I have written
since your departure, there are some speeches, which I will give
Menocritus, not so very many, so don't be afraid! I have also written
for I am now rather withdrawing from oratory and returning to
the gentler Muses, which now give me greater delight than any
others, as they have done since my earliest youth well, then, I have
written in the Aristotelian style, at least that was my aim, three
books in the form of a discussion in dialogue "On the Orator,"
which, I think, will be of some service to your Lentulus. For they
differ a good deal from the current maxims, and embrace a discussion
on the whole oratorical theory of the ancients, both that of Aristotle
and Isocrates. I have also written in verse three books "On My Own
Times," which I should have sent you some time ago, if I had
thought they ought to be published for they are witnesses, and will
be eternal witnesses, of your services to me and of my affection but

LETTERS 131

I refrained because I was afraid, not of those who might think
themselves attacked, for I have been very sparing and gentle in that
respect, but of my benefactors, of whom it were an endless task to
mention the whole list. Nevertheless, the books, such as they are,
if I find anyone to whom I can safely commit them, I will take care
to have conveyed to you: and as far as that part of my life 'and
conduct is concerned, I submit it entirely to your judgment. All
that I shall succeed in accomplishing in literature or in learning my
old favourite relaxations I shall with the utmost cheerfulness place
before the bar of your criticism, for you have always had a fondness
for such things. As to what you say in your letter about your
domestic affairs, and all you charge me to do, I am so attentive to
them that I don't like being reminded, can scarcely bear, indeed, to
be asked without a very painful feeling. As to your saying, in regard
to Quintus's business, that you could not do anything last summer,
because you were prevented by illness from crossing to Cilicia, but
that you will now do everything in your power to settle it, I may
tell you that the fact of the matter is that, if he can annex this
property, my brother thinks that he will owe to you the consolidation
of this ancestral estate. I should like you to write about all your
affairs, and about the studies and training of your son Lentulus
(whom I regard as mine also) as confidentially and as frequently as
possible, and to believe that there never has been anyone either dearer
or more congenial to another than you are to me, and that I will not
only make you feel that to be the case, but will make all the world
and posterity itself to the latest generation aware of it.

Appius used some time back to repeat in conversation, and after-
wards said openly, even in the senate, that if he were allowed to carry
a law in the comitia curiata, he would draw lots with his colleague
for their provinces; but if no curiatian law were passed, he would
make an arrangement with his colleague and succeed you: that a
curiatian law was a proper thing for a consul, but was not a necessity:
that since he was in possession of a province by a decree of the senate,
he should have imperium in virtue of the Cornelian law until such
time as he entered the city. I don't know what your several con-
nexions write to you on the subject: I understand that opinion varies.
There are some who think that you can legally refuse to quit your

132 CICERO

province, because your successor is named without a curiatian law:
some also hold that, even if you do quit it, you may leave someone
behind you to conduct its government. For myself, I do not feel so
certain about the point of law although there is not much doubt
even about that as I do of this, that it is for your greatest honour,
dignity, and independence, which I know you always value above
everything, to hand over your province to a successor without any
delay, especially as you cannot thwart his greediness without rousing
suspicion of your own. I regard my duty as twofold to let you
know what I think, and to defend what you have done.

P.S. I had written the above when I received your letter about
the publicani, to whom I could not but admire the justice of your
conduct. I could have wished that you had been able by some lucky
chance to avoid running counter to the interests and wishes of that
order, whose honour you have always promoted. For my part, I
shall not cease to defend your decrees : but you know the ways of that
class of men; you are aware how bitterly hostile they were to the
famous Q. Scaevola himself. However, I advise you to reconcile
that order to yourself, or at least soften its feelings, if you can by any
means do so. Though difficult, I think it is, nevertheless, not beyond
the reach of your sagacity.

XVI

To C. TREBATIUS TESTA (IN GAUL)
ROME, NOVEMBER, 54 B.C.

IN the "Trojan Horse," just at the end, you remember the words,
"Too late they learn wisdom." You, however, old man, were wise in
time. Those first snappy letters of yours were foolish enough, and

then ! I don't at all blame you for not being overcurious in

regard to Britain. For the present, however, you seem to be in winter
quarters somewhat short of warm clothing, and therefore not caring
to stir out:

"Not here and there, but everywhere,
Be wise and ware:
No sharper steel can warrior bear."

LETTERS 133

If I had been by way of dining out, I would not have failed your
friend Cn. Octavius; to whom, however, I did remark upon his
repeated invitations, "Pray, who are you?" But, by Hercules, joking
apart, he is a pretty fellow : I could have wished you had taken him
with you! Let me know for certain what you are doing and whether
you intend coming to Italy at all this winter. Balbus has assured
me that you will be rich. Whether he speaks after the simple Roman
fashion, meaning that you will be well supplied with money, or
according to the Stoic dictum, that "all are rich who can enjoy the
sky and the earth," I shall know hereafter. Those who come from
your part accuse you of pride, because they say you won't answer
men who put questions to you. However, there is one thing that
will please you: they all agree in saying that there is no better lawyer
than you at Samarobriva!

XVII

To ATTICUS (AT ROME)
MiNTURNiE, MAY, 51 B.C.

YES, I saw well enough what your feelings were as I parted from
you; what mine were I am my own witness. This makes it all the
more incumbent on you to prevent an additional decree being passed,
so that this mutual regret of ours may not last more than a year.
As to Annius Saturninus, your measures are excellent. As to the
guarantee, pray, during your stay at Rome, give it yourself. You will
find several guarantees on purchase, such as those of the estates of
Memmius, or rather of Attilius. As to Oppius, that is exactly what I
wished, and especially your having engaged to pay him the 800
sestertia (about ,6,400), which I am determined shall be paid in
any case, even if I have to borrow to do so, rather than wait for the
last day of getting in my own debts.

I now come to that last line of your letter written crossways, in
which you give me a word of caution about your sister. The facts
of the matter are these: On arriving at my place at Arpinum, my
brother came to see me, and our first subject of conversation was
yourself, and we discussed it at great length. After this I brought the
conversation round to what you and I had discussed at Tusculum,

134 CICERO

on the subject of your sister. I never saw anything so gentle and
placable as my brother was on that occasion in regard to your sister:
so much so, indeed, that if there had been any cause of quarrel on
the score of expense, it was not apparent. So much for that day. Next
day we started from Arpinum. A country festival caused Quintus to
stop at Arcanum; I stopped at Aquinum; but we lunched at
Arcanum. You know his property there. When we got there Quin-
tus said, in the kindest manner, "Pomponia, do you ask the ladies in;
I will invite the men." Nothing, as I thought, could be more court-
eous, and that, too, not only in the actual words, but also in his
intention and the expression of face. But she, in the hearing of us
all, exclaimed, "I am only a stranger here!" The origin of that was,
as I think, the fact that Statius had preceded us to look after the
luncheon. Thereupon Quintus said to me, "There, that's what I
have to put up with every day!" You will say, "Well, what does that
amount to?" A great deal, and, indeed, she had irritated even me:
her answer had been given with such unnecessary acrimony, both
of word and look. I concealed my annoyance. We all took our
places at table except her. However, Quintus sent her dishes from
the table, which she declined. In short, I thought I never saw any-
thing better-tempered than my brother, or crosser than your sister:
and there were many particulars which I omit that raised my bile
more than they did that of Quintus himself. I then went on to
Aquinum; Quintus stopped at Arcanum, and joined me early the
next day at Aquinum. He told me that she had refused to sleep with
him, and when on the point of leaving, she behaved just as I had
seen her. Need I say more? You may tell her herself that in my
judgment she shewed a marked want of kindness on that day. I have
told you this story at greater length, perhaps, than was necessary, to
convince you that you, too, have something to do in the way of
giving her instruction and advice.

There only remains for me to beg you to complete all my commis-
sions before leaving town; to give Pomptinus a push, and make him
start; to let me know as soon as you have left town, and to believe
that, by heaven, there is nothing I love and find more pleasure in
than yourself. I said a most affectionate good-bye to that best of
men, A. Torquatus, at Minturnx, to whom I wish you would remark,

LETTERS 135

in the course of conversation, that I have mentioned him in my
letter.

XVIII

To M. PORCIUS CATO (AT ROME)
CILICIA, JANUARY, 50 B.C.

YOUR own immense prestige and my unvarying belief in your
consummate virtue have convinced me of the great importance it is
to me that you should be acquainted with what I have accomplished,
and that you should not be ignorant of the equity and disinterested-
ness with which I protected our allies and governed my province.
For if you knew these facts, I thought I should with greater ease
secure your approval of my wishes.

Having entered my province on the last day of July, and seeing
that the time of year made it necessary for me to make all haste to
the army, I spent but two days at Laodicea, four at Apamea, three at
Synnada, and the same at Philomelium. Having held largely
attended assizes in these towns, I freed a great number of cities from
very vexatious tributes, excessive interest, and fraudulent debt. Again,
the army having before my arrival been broken up by something like
a mutiny, and five cohorts without a legate or a military tribune,
and, in fact, actually without a single centurion having taken up
its quarters at Philomelium, while the rest of the army was in
Lycaonia, I ordered my legate M. Anneius to bring those five cohorts
to join the main army; and, having thus got the whole army together
into one place, to pitch a camp at Iconium in Lycaonia. This order
having been energetically executed by him, I arrived at the camp
myself on the 24th of August, having meanwhile, in accordance with
the decree of the senate, collected in the intervening days a strong
body of reserve men, a very adequate force of cavalry, and a con-
tingent of volunteers from the free peoples and allied sovereigns.
While this was going on, and when, after reviewing the army, I
had on the 28th of August begun my march to Cilicia, some legates
sent to me by the sovereign of Commagene announced, with every
sign of panic, yet not without some foundation, that the Parthians
had entered Syria. On hearing this I was rendered very anxious both

136 CICERO

for Syria and my own province, and, in fact, for all the rest of Asia.
Accordingly, I made up my mind that I must lead the army through
the district of Cappadocia, which adjoins Cilicia. For if I had gone
straight down into Cilicia, I could easily indeed have held Cilicia
itself, owing to the natural strength of Mount Amanus for there are
only two defiles opening into Cilicia from Syria, both of which are
capable of being closed by insignificant garrisons owing to their
narrowness, nor can anything be imagined better fortified than is
Cilicia on the Syrian side but I was disturbed for Cappadocia, which
is quite open on the Syrian side, and is surrounded by kings, who,
even if they are our friends in secret, nevertheless do not venture to
be openly hostile to the Parthians. Accordingly, I pitched my camp
in the extreme south of Cappadocia at the town of Cybistra, not far
from Mount Taurus, with the object at once of covering Cilicia, and
of thwarting the designs of the neighbouring tribes by holding Cap-
padocia. Meanwhile, in the midst of this serious commotion and
anxious expectation of a very formidable war, King Deiotarus, who
has with good reason been always highly honoured in your judgment
and my own, as well as that of the senate a man distinguished for
his good will and loyalty to the Roman people, as well as for his
eminent courage and wisdom sent legates to tell me that he was on
his way to my camp in full force. Much affected by his zeal and kind-
ness, I sent him a letter of thanks, and urged him to hasten. How-
ever, being detained at Cybistra five days while maturing my plan of
campaign, I rescued King Ariobarzanes, whose safety had been in-
trusted to me by the senate on your motion, from a plot that, to his
surprise, had been formed against him : and I not only saved his life,
but I took pains also to secure that his royal authority should be
respected. Metras and Athenasus (the latter strongly commended to
me by yourself), who had been exiled owing to the persistent enmity
of Queen Athenars, I restored to a position of the highest influence
and favour with the king. Then, as there was danger of serious
hostilities arising in Cappadocia in case the priest, as it was thought
likely that he would do, defended himself with arms for he was a
young man, well furnished with horse and foot and money, and
relying on those all who desired political change of any sort I
contrived that he should leave the kingdom: and that the king, with-

LETTERS 137

out civil war or an appeal to arms, with the full authority of the court
thoroughly secured, should hold the kingdom with proper dignity.
Meanwhile, I was informed by despatches and messengers from
many sides, that the Parthians and Arabs had approached the town
of Antioch in great force, and that a large body of their horsemen,
which had crossed into Cilicia, had been cut to pieces by some
squadrons of my cavalry and the praetorian cohort then on garrison
duty at Epiphanea. Wherefore, seeing that the forces of the Parthians
had turned their backs upon Cappadocia, and were not far from
the frontiers of Cilicia, I led my army to Amanus with the longest
forced marches I could. Arrived there, I learnt that the enemy had
retired from Antioch, and that Bibulus was at Antioch. I thereupon
informed Deiotarus, who was hurrying to join me with a large and
strong body of horse and foot, and with all the forces he could muster,
that I saw no reason for his leaving his own dominions, and that in
case of any new event, I would immediately write and send to him.
And as my intention in coming had been to relieve both provinces,
should occasion arise, so now I proceeded to do what I had all along
made up my mind was greatly to the interest of both provinces,
namely, to reduce Amanus, and to remove from that mountain an
eternal enemy. So I made a feint of retiring from the mountain
and making for other parts of Cilicia : and having gone a day's march
from Amanus and pitched a camp, on the i2th of October, towards
evening, at Epiphanea, with my army in light marching order I
effected such a night march, that by dawn on the i3th I was already
ascending Amanus. Having formed the cohorts and auxiliaries into
several columns of attack I and my legate Quintus (my brother)
commanding one, my legate C. Pomptinus another, and my legates
M. Anneius and L. Tullius the rest we surprised most of the inhabi-
tants, who, being cut ofT from all retreat, were killed or taken
prisoners. But Erana, which was more like a town than a village, and
was the capital of Amanus, as also Sepyra and Commoris, which
offered a determined and protracted resistance from before daybreak
till four in the afternoon Pomptinus being in command in that
part of Amanus we took, after killing a great number of the enemy,
and stormed and set fire to several fortresses. After these operations
we lay encamped for four days on the spurs of Amanus, near the

138 CICERO

Arce Alexandri, and all that time we devoted to the destruction of the
remaining inhabitants of Amanus, and devastating their lands on
that side of the mountain which belongs to my province. Having
accomplished this, I led the army away to Pindenissus, a town of the
Eleutherocilices. And since this town was situated on a very lofty
and strongly fortified spot, and was inhabited by men who have
never submitted even to the kings, and since they were offering
harbourage to deserters, and were eagerly expecting the arrival of the
Parthians, I thought it of importance to the prestige of the empire to
suppress their audacity, in order that there might be less difficulty in
breaking the spirits of all such as were anywhere disaffected to our
rule. I encircled them with a stockade and trench: I beleaguered
them with six forts and huge camps : I assaulted them by the aid of
earth-works, pent-houses, and towers: and having employed nu-
merous catapults and bowmen, with great personal labour, and
without troubling the allies or costing them anything, I reduced
them to such extremities that, after every region of their town had
been battered down or fired, they surrendered to me on the fifty-
seventh day. Their next neighbours were the people of Tebara, no less
predatory and audacious: from them after the capture of Pindenissus
I received hostages. I then dismissed the army to winter quarters;
and I put my brother in command, with orders to station the men
in villages that had either been captured or were disaffected.

Well, now, I would have you feel convinced that, should a motion
be brought before the senate on these matters, I shall consider that
the highest possible compliment has been paid me, if you give your
vote in favour of a mark of honour being bestowed upon me. And
as to this, though I am aware that in such matters men of the most
respectable character are accustomed to ask and to be asked, yet I
think in your case that it is rather a reminder than a request which
is called for from me. For it is you who have on very many occa-
sions complimented me in votes which you delivered, who have
praised me to the skies in conversation, in panegyric, in the most
laudatory speeches in senate and public meeting: you are the man
to whose words I ever attached such weight as to hold myself in
possession of my utmost ambition, if your lips joined the chorus of
my praise. It was you finally, as I recollect, who said, when voting

LETTERS 139

against a supplicatio in honour of a certain illustrious and noble
person, that you would have voted for it, if the motion had related
to what he had done in the city as consul. It was you, too, who voted
for granting me a supplicatio, though only a civilian, not as had been
done in many instances, "for good services to the state," but, as I
remember, "for having saved the state." I pass over your having
shared the hatred I excited, the dangers I ran, all the storms that I
have encountered, and your having been entirely ready to have shared
them much more fully if I had allowed it; and finally your having
regarded my enemy as your own; of whose death even thus shew-
ing me clearly how much you valued me you manifested your
approval by supporting the cause of Milo in the senate. On the other
hand, I have borne a testimony to you, which I do not regard as
constituting any claim on your gratitude, but as a frank expression of
genuine opinion: for I did not confine myself to a silent admiration
of your eminent virtues who does not admire them? But in all
forms of speech, whether in the senate or at the bar; in all kinds of
writing, Greek or Latin; in fine, in all the various branches of my
literary activity, I proclaimed your superiority not only to contempo-
raries, but also to those of whom we have heard in history.

You will ask, perhaps, why I place such value on this or that
modicum of congratulation or compliment from the senate. I will
be frank with you, as our common tastes and mutual good services,
our close friendship, nay, the intimacy of our fathers demand. If
there ever was anyone by natural inclination, and still more, I think,
by reason and reflexion, averse from the empty praise and comments
of the vulgar, I am certainly the man. Witness my consulship, in
which, as in the rest of my life, I confess that I eagerly pursued the
objects capable of producing true glory: mere glory for its own sake
I never thought a subject for ambition. Accordingly, I not only passed
over a province after the votes for its outfit had been taken, but also
with it an almost certain hope of a triumph; and finally the priest-
hood, though, as I think you will agree with me, I could have ob-
tained it without much difficulty, I did not try to get. Yet after my
unjust disgrace always stigmatized by you as a disaster to the
Republic, and rather an honour than a disaster to myself I was
anxious that some very signal marks of the approbation of the

I4O CICERO

senate and Roman people should be put on record. Accordingly, in
the first place, I did subsequently wish for the augurship, about which
I had not troubled myself before; and the compliment usually paid
by the senate in the case of success in war, though passed over by me
in old times, I now think an object to be desired. That you should
approve and support this wish of mine, in which you may trace a
strong desire to heal the wounds inflicted upon me by my disgrace,
though I a little while ago declared that I would not ask it, I now
do earnestly ask of you: but only on condition that you shall not
think my humble services paltry and insignificant, but of such a
nature and importance, that many for far less signal successes have
obtained the highest honours from the senate. I have, too, I think,
noticed this for you know how attentively I ever listen to you
that in granting or withholding honours you are accustomed to look
not so much to the particular achievements as to the character, the
principles and conduct of commanders. Well, if you apply this test
to my case, you will find that, with a weak army, my strongest sup-
port against the threat of a very formidable war has been my equity
and purity of conduct. With these as my aids I accomplished what
I never could have accomplished by any amount of legions: among
the allies I have created the warmest devotion in place of the most
extreme alienation; the most complete loyalty in place of the most
dangerous disaffection; and their spirits fluttered by the prospect
of change I have brought back to feelings of affection for the old
rule.

But I have said too much of myself, especially to you, in whom
singly the grievances of all our allies alike find a listener. You will
learn the truth from those who think themselves restored to life by
my administration. And while all with nearly one consent will
praise me in your hearing as I most desire to be praised, so will your
two chief client states the island of Cyprus and the kingdom of
Cappadocia have something to say to you about me also. So, too, I
think, will Deiotarus, who is attached to you with special warmth.
Now, if these things are above the common run, and if in all ages it
has been rarer to find men capable of conquering their own desires
than capable of conquering an enemy's army, it is quite in harmony
with your principles, when you find these rarer and more difficult

LETTERS 141

virtues combined with success in war, to regard that success itself as
more complete and glorious.

I have only one last resource philosophy : and to make her plead
for me, as though I doubted the efficacy of a mere request: philoso-
phy, the best friend I have ever had in all my life, the greatest gift
which has been bestowed by the gods upon mankind. Yes! this
common sympathy in tastes and studies our inseparable devotion
and attachment to which from boyhood have caused us to become
almost unique examples of men bringing that true and ancient
philosophy (which some regard as only the employment of leisure
and idleness) down to the forum, the council chamber, and the very
camp itself pleads the cause of my glory with you: and I do not
think a Cato can, with a good conscience, say her nay. Wherefore
I would have you convince yourself that, if my despatch is made the
ground of paying me this compliment with your concurrence, I
shall consider that the dearest wish of my heart has been fulfilled
owing at once to your influence and to your friendship.

XIX

To ATTICUS (IN EPIRUS)
LAODICEA, 22 FEBRUARY, 50 B.C.

I RECEIVED your letter on the fifth day before the Terminalia (i9th
of February) at Laodicea. I was delighted to read it, for it teemed
with affection, kindness, and an active and obliging temper. I will,
therefore, answer it sentence by sentence for such is your request
and I will not introduce an arrangement of my own, but will follow
your order.

You say that the last letter you had of mine was from Cybistra,
dated 2ist September, and you want to know which of yours I have
received. Nearly all you mention, except the one that you say that
you delivered to Lentulus's messengers at Equotuticus and Brundi-
sium. Wherefore your industry has not been thrown away, as you
fear, but has been exceedingly well laid out, if, that is to say, your
object was to give me pleasure. For I have never been more delighted
with anything. I am exceedingly glad that you approve of my self-

142 CICERO

restraint in the case of Appius, and of my independence even in the
case of Brutus: and I had thought that it might be somewhat other-
wise. For Appius, in the course of his journey, had sent me two or
three rather querulous letters, because I rescinded some of his deci-
sions. It is exactly as if a doctor, upon a patient having been placed
under another doctor, should choose to be angry with the latter if he
changed some of his prescriptions. Thus Appius, having treated
the province on the system of depletion, bleeding, and removing
everything he could, and having handed it over to me in the last
state of exhaustion, he cannot bear seeing it treated by me on the
nutritive system. Yet he is sometimes angry with me, at other times
thanks me; for nothing I ever do is accompanied with any reflexion
upon him. It is only the dissimilarity of my system that annoys him.
For what could be a more striking difference under his rule a
province drained by charges for maintenance and by losses, under
mine, not a penny exacted either from private persons or public
bodies? Why speak of his prcejecti, staff, and legates? Or even of
acts of plunder, licentiousness, and insult ? While as things actually
are, no private house, by Hercules, is governed with so much system,
or on such strict principles, nor is so well disciplined, as is my whole
province. Some of Appius's friends put a ridiculous construction on
this, holding that I wish for a good reputation to set off his bad one,
and act rightly, not for the sake of my own credit, but in order to
cast a reflexion upon him. But if Appius, as Brutus's letter forwarded
by you indicated, expresses gratitude to me, I am satisfied. Never-
theless, this very day on which I write this, before dawn, I am think-
ing of rescinding many of his inequitable appointments and decisions.
I now come to Brutus, whose friendship I embraced with all
possible earnestness on your advice. I had even begun to feel genuine
affection for him but here I pull myself up short, lest I should offend
you: for don't imagine that there is anything I wish more than to
fulfil his commissions, or that there is anything about which I have
taken more trouble. Now he gave me a volume of commissions, and
you had already spoken with me about the same matters. I have
pushed them on with the greatest energy. To begin with, I put such
pressure on Ariobarzanes, that he paid him the talents which he
promised me. As long as the king was with me, the business was in

LETTERS 143

excellent train: later on he began to be pressed by countless agents
of Pompey. Now Pompey has by himself more influence than all the
rest put together for many reasons, and especially because there is
an idea that he is coming to undertake the Parthian war. However,
even he has to put up with the following scale of payment: on every
thirtieth day thirty-three Attic talents (^7,920), and that raised by
special taxes: nor is it sufficient for the monthly interest. But our
friend Gnseus is an easy creditor: he stands out of his capital, is con-
tent with the interest, and even that not in full. The king neither
pays anyone else, nor is capable of doing so: for he has no treasury,
no regular income. He levies taxes after the method of Appius.
They scarcely produce enough to satisfy Pompey's interest. The king
has two or three very rich friends, but they stick to their own as
energetically as you or I. For my part, nevertheless, I do not cease
sending letters asking, urging, chiding the king. Deiotarus also has
informed me that he has sent emissaries to him on Brutus's business:
that they have brought him back word that he has not got the money.
And, by Hercules, I believe it is the case; nothing can be stripped
cleaner than his kingdom, or be more needy than the king. Accord-
ingly, I am thinking either of renouncing my guardianship, or, as
Scaevola did on behalf of Glabrio, of stopping payment altogether
principal and interest alike. However, I have conferred the prefec-
tures which I promised Brutus through you on M. Scaptius and L.
Gavius, who were acting as Brutus's agents in the kingdom: for
they were not carrying on business in my own province. You will
remember that I made that condition, that he might have as many
prefectures as he pleased, so long as it was not for a man in business.
Accordingly, I have given him two others besides: but the men for
whom he asked them had left the province. Now for the case of the
Salaminians, which I see came upon you also as a novelty, as it did
upon me. For Brutus never told me that the money was his own.
Nay, I have his own document containing the words, "The Salamin-
ians owe my friends M. Scaptius and P. Matinius a sum of money."
He recommends them to me: he even adds, as though by way of a
spur to me, that he has gone surety for them to a large amount. I
had succeeded in arranging that they should pay with interest for six
years at the rate of twelve per cent., and added yearly to the capital

144 CICERO

sum. But Scaptius demanded forty-eight per cent. I was afraid, if he
got that, you yourself would cease to have any affection for me. For
I should have receded from my own edict, and should have utterly
ruined a state which was under the protection not only of Cato, but
also of Brutus himself, and had been the recipient of favours from
myself. When lo and behold! at this very juncture Scaptius comes
down upon me with a letter from Brutus, stating that his own
property is being imperilled a fact that Brutus had never told either
me or you. He also begged that I would confer a prefecture on
Scaptius. That was the very reservation that I had made to you
"not to a man in business": and if to anyone, to such a man as that
no! For he has been a prcefectus to Appius, and had, in fact,
had some squadrons of cavalry, with which he had kept the senate
under so close a siege in their own council chamber at Salamis,
that five senators died of starvation. Accordingly, the first day of
my entering my province, Cyprian legates having already visited me
at Ephesus, I sent orders for the cavalry to quit the island at once.
For these reasons I believe Scaptius has written some unfavour-
able remarks about me to Brutus. However, my feeling is this:
if Brutus holds that I ought to have decided in favour of forty-
eight per cent., though throughout my province I have only recog-
nized twelve per cent., and had laid down that rule in my edict
with the assent even of the most grasping money-lenders; if he
complains of my refusal of a prefecture to a man in business, which
I refused to our friend Torquatus in the case of your protege
Lamms, and to Pompey himself in the case of Sext. Statius, without
offending either of them; if, finally, he is annoyed at my recall of
the cavalry, I shall indeed feel some distress at his being angry
with me, but much greater distress at finding him not to be the
man that I had thought him. Thus much Scaptius will own that
he had the opportunity in my court of taking away with him
the whole sum allowed by my edict. I will add a fact which
I fear you may not approve. The interest ought to have ceased
to run (I mean the interest allowed by my edict) but I induced
the Salaminians to say nothing about that. They gave in to me,
it is true, but what will become of them if Paullus comes here?
However, I have granted all this in favour of Brutus, who writes

LETTERS 145

very kind letters to you about me, but to me myself, even when
he has a favour to ask, writes usually in a tone of hauteur, arrogance,
and offensive superiority. You, however, I hope will write to him
on this business in order that I may know how he takes what I
have done. For you will tell me. I have, it is true, written you a
full and careful account in a former letter, but I wished you clearly
to understand that I had not forgotten what you had said to me
in one of your letters: that if I brought home from this province
nothing else except his good will, I should have done enough.
By all means, since you will have it so: but I assume my dealings
with him to be without breach of duty on my part. Well, then, by
my decree the payment of the money to Statius is good at law:
whether that is just you must judge for yourself I will not appeal
even to Cato. But don't think that I have cast your exhortations
to the winds: they have sunk deeply into my mind. With tears
in your eyes you urged me to be careful of my reputation. Have
I ever got a letter from you without the same subject being men-
tioned? So, then, let who will be angry, I will endure it: "for the
right is on my side," especially as I have given six books as bail,
so to speak, for my good conduct. I am very glad you like them,
though in one point about Cn. Flavius, son of Annius you ques-
tion my history. He, it is true, did not live before the decemvirs,
for he was curule aedile, an office created many years after the
decemvirs. What good did he do, then, by publishing the Fasti ?
It is supposed that the tablet containing them had been kept con-
cealed up to a certain date, in order that information as to days for
doing business might have to be sought from a small coterie. And
indeed several of our authorities relate that a scribe named Cn.
Flavius published the Fasti and composed forms of pleading so
don't imagine that I, or rather Africanus (for he is the spokesman),
invented the fact. So you noticed the remark about the "action of an
actor," did you? You suspect a malicious meaning: I wrote in all
simplicity.

You say that Philotimus told you about my having been saluted
imperator. But I feel sure that, as you are now in Epirus, you
have received my own letters on the whole subject, one from
Pindenissus after its capture, another from Laodicea, both delivered

146 CICERO

to your own messengers. On these events, for fear of accidents
at sea, I sent a public despatch to Rome in duplicate by two different
letter-carriers.

As to my Tullia, I agree with you, and I have written to her
and to Terentia giving my consent. For you have already said
in a previous letter to me, "and I could wish that you had returned
to your old set." There was no occasion to alter the letter you sent
by Memmius: for I much prefer to accept this man from Pontidia,
than the other from Servilia. Wherefore take our friend Saufeius
into council. He was always fond of me, and now I suppose all
the more so as he is bound to have accepted Appius's affection for
me with the rest of the property he has inherited. Appius often
showed how much he valued me, and especially in the trial of Bursa.
Indeed you will have relieved me of a serious anxiety.

I don't like Furnius's proviso. For, in fact, there is no state of
things that alarms me except just that of which he makes the
only exception. But I should have written at great length to you
on this subject if you had been at Rome. I don't wonder that you
rest all your hope of peace on Pompey: I believe that is the truth,
and in my opinion you must strike out your word "insincerity."
If my arrangement of topics is somewhat random, blame yourself:
for I am following your own haphazard order.

My son and nephew are very fond of each other. They take their
lessons and their exercise together; but as Isocrates said of Ephorus
and Theopompus, the one wants the rein, the other the spur. I
intend giving Quintus the toga virilis on the Liberalia. For his
father commissioned me to do so. And I shall observe the day
without taking intercalation into account. I am very fond of Diony-
sius: the boys, however, say that he gets into mad passions. But after
all there could not be a man of greater learning, purer character, or
more attached to you and me. The praises you hear of Thermus
and Silius are thoroughly deserved: they conduct themselves in
the most honourable manner. You may say the same of M. Nonius,
Bibulus, and myself, if you like. I only wish Scrofa had had an
opportunity to do the same: for he is an excellent fellow. The rest
don't do much honour to Cato's policy. Many thanks for commend-
ing my case to Hortensius. As for Amianus, Dionysius thinks there

LETTERS 147

is no hope. I haven't found a trace of Terentius. Moeragenes has
certainly been killed. I made a progress through his distric^ in
which there was not a single living thing left. I didn't know about
this, when I spoke to your man Democritus. I have ordered the
service of Rhosian ware. But, hallo! what are you thinking of?
You generally serve us up a dinner of herbs on fern-pattern plates,
and the most sparkling of baskets: what am I to expect you to
give on porcelain? I have ordered a horn for Phemius: one will
be sure to turn up; I only hope he may play something worthy of it.
There is a threat of a Parthian war. Cassius's despatch was empty
brag: that of Bibulus had not arrived: when that is read I think
the senate will at length be roused. I am myself in serious anxiety.
If, as I hope, my government is not prolonged, I have only June
and July to fear. May it be so! Bibulus will keep them in check for
two months. What will happen to the man I leave in charge,
especially if it is my brother? Or, again, what will happen to me,
if I don't leave my province so soon? It is a great nuisance. How-
ever, I have agreed with Deiotarus that he should join my camp in
full force. He has thirty cohorts of four hundred men apiece,
armed in the Roman fashion, and two thousand cavalry. That will
be sufficient to hold out till the arrival of Pompey, who in a letter
he writes to me indicates that the business will be put in his hands.
The Parthians are wintering in a Roman province. Orodes is
expected in person. In short, it is a serious matter. As to Bibulus's
edict, there is nothing new, except the proviso of which you said
in your letter, "that it reflected with excessive severity on our order."
I, however, have a proviso in my own edict of equivalent force, but
less openly expressed (derived from the Asiatic edict of Q. Mucius,
son of Publius) "provided that the agreement made is not such
as cannot hold good in equity." I have followed Sczvola in many
points, among others in this which the Greeks regard as a charta
of liberty that Greeks are to decide controversies between each
other according to their own laws. But my edict was shortened by
my method of making a division, as I thought it well to publish
it under two heads: the first, exclusively applicable to a province,
concerned borough accounts, debt, rate of interest, contracts, all
regulations also referring to the publicani: the second, including

148 CICERO

what cannot conveniently be transacted without an edict, related to
inheritances, ownership and sale, appointment of receivers, all which
are by custom brought into court and settled in accordance with
the edict: a third division, embracing the remaining departments
of judicial business, I left unwritten. I gave out that in regard to
that class of business I should accommodate my decisions to those
made at Rome: I accordingly do so, and give general satisfaction.
The Greeks, indeed, are jubilant because they have non-Roman
jurors. "Yes," you will say, "a very poor kind." What does that
matter? They, at any rate, imagine themselves to have obtained
"autonomy." You at Rome, I suppose, have men of high character
in that capacity Turpio the shoemaker and Vettius the broker!
You seem to wish to know how I treat the publicani. I pet,
indulge, compliment, and honour them: I contrive, however, that
they oppress no one. The most surprising thing is that even Servilius
maintained the rates of usury entered on their contracts. My line
is this: I name a day fairly distant, before which, if they have paid,
I give out that I shall recognize only twelve per cent.: if they have
not paid, the rate shall be according to the contract. The result is
that the Greeks pay at a reasonable rate of interest, and the publicani
are thoroughly satisfied by receiving in full measure what I men-
tioned complimentary speeches and frequent invitations. Need I
say more? They are all on such terms with me that each thinks
himself my most intimate friend. However, Mtev avrols you know
the rest.

As to the statue of Africanus what a mass of confusion! But
that was just what interested me in your letter. Do you really mean
it? Does the present Metellus Scipio not know that his great-
grandfather was never censor? Why, the statue placed at a high
elevation in the temple of Ops had no inscription except CENS,
while on the statue near the Hercules of Polycles there is also the
inscription CENS, and that this is the statue of the same man is
proved by attitude, dress, ring, and the likeness itself. But, by
Hercules, when I observed in the group of gilded equestrian statues,
placed by the present Metellus on the Capitol, a statue of Africanus
with the name of Serapio inscribed under it, I thought it a mistake
of the workman. I now see that it is an error of Metellus's. What

LETTERS 149

a shocking historical blunder! For that about Flavius and the Fasti,
if it is a blunder, is one shared in by all, and you were quite right to
raise the question. I followed the opinion which runs through nearly
all historians, as is often the case with Greek writers. For example,
do they not all say that Eupolis, the poet of the old comedy, was
thrown into the sea by Alcibiades on his voyage to Sicily? Eratos-
thenes disproves it: for he produces some plays exhibited by him
after that date. Is that careful historian, Duris of Samos, laughed
out of court because he, in common with many others, made this
mistake? Has not, again, every writer affirmed that Zaleucus drew
up a constitution for the Locrians? Are we on that account to
regard Theophrastus as utterly discredited, because your favourite
Timzus attacked his statement? But not to know that one's own
great-grandfather was never censor is discreditable, especially as since
his consulship no Cornelius was censor in his lifetime.

As to what you say about Philotimus and the payment of the
20,600 sestertia, I hear that Philotimus arrived in the Chersonese
about the ist of January: but as yet I have not had a word from
him. The balance due to me Camillus writes me word that he
has received; I don't know how much it is, and I am anxious to
know. However, we will talk of this later on, and with greater
advantage, perhaps, when we meet?

But, my dear Atticus, that sentence almost at the end of your letter
gave me great uneasiness. For you say, "What else is there to say?"
and then you go on to entreat me in most affectionate terms not
to forget my vigilance, and to keep my eyes on what is going on.
Have you heard anything about anyone? I am sure nothing of
the sort has taken place. No, no, it can't be! It would never have
eluded my notice, nor will it. Yet that reminder of yours, so care-
fully worded, seems to suggest something.

As to M. Octavius, I hereby again repeat that your answer was
excellent: I could have wished it a little more positive still. For
Ca:lius has sent me a freedman and a carefully written letter about
some panthers and also a grant from the states. I have written back
to say that, as to the latter, I am much vexed if my course of con-
duct is still obscure, and if it is not known at Rome that not a
penny has been exacted from my province except for the payment of

I5O CICERO

debt; and I have explained to him that it is improper both for me
to solicit the money and for him to receive it; and I have advised
him (for I am really attached to him) that, after prosecuting others,
he should be extra-careful as to his own conduct. As to the former
request, I have said that it is inconsistent with my character that
the people of Cibyra should hunt at the public expense while I am
governor.

Lepta jumps for joy at your letter. It is indeed prettily written, and
has placed me in a very agreeable light in his eyes. I am much
obliged to your little daughter for so earnestly bidding you send
me her love. It is very kind of Pilia also; but your daughter's
kindness is the greater, because she sends the message to one she has
never seen. Therefore pray give my love to both in return. The
day on which your letter was dated, the last day of December, re-
minded me pleasantly of that glorious oath of mine, which I have not
forgotten. I was a civilian Magnus on that day.

There's your letter completely answered! Not as you were good
enough to ask, with "gold for bronze," but tit for tat. Oh, but
here is another little note, which I will not leave unanswered.
Lucceius, on my word, could get a good price for his Tusculan
property, unless, perchance, his flute-player is a fixture (for that's
his way), and I should like to know in what condition it is. Our
friend Lentulus, I hear, has advertised everything for sale except his
Tusculan property. I should like to see these men cleared of their
embarrassments, Cestius also, and you may add Cadius, to all of
whom the line applies,

"Ashamed to shrink and yet afraid to take."

I suppose you have heard of Curio's plan for recalling Memmius.
Of the debt due from Egnatius of Sidicinum I am not without some
hope, though it is a feeble one. Pinarius, whom you recommended
to me, is seriously ill, and is being very carefully looked after by
Deiotarus. So there's the answer to your note also.

Pray talk to me on paper as frequently as possible while I am
at Laodicea, where I shall be up to the i5th of May: and when
you reach Athens at any rate send me letter-carriers, for by that
time we shall know about the business in the city and the arrange-

LETTERS 151

ments as to the provinces, the settlement of all which has been fixed
for March.

But look here! Have you yet wrung out of Czsar by the agency
of Herodes the fifty Attic talents? In that matter you have, I
hear, roused great wrath on the part of Pompey. For he thinks that
you have snapped up money rightly his, and that Csesar will be
no less lavish in his building at the Nemus Dianz.

I was told all this by P. Vedius, a hare-brained fellow enough, but
yet an intimate friend of Pompey's. This Vedius came to meet me
with two chariots, and a carriage and horses, and a sedan, and a
large suite of servants, for which last, if Curio has carried his law,
he will have to pay a toll of a hundred sestertii apiece. There was
also in a chariot a dog-headed baboon, as well as some wild asses.
I never saw a more extravagant fool. But the cream of the whole is
this: He stayed at Laodicea with Pompeius Vindullus. There he
deposited his properties when coming to see me. Meanwhile Vindul-
lus dies, and his property is supposed to revert to Pompeius Magnus.
Gaius Vennonius comes to Vindullus's house: when, while putting
a seal on all goods, he comes across the baggage of Vedius. In this
are found five small portrait busts of married ladies, among which
is one of the wife of your friend "brute," indeed, to be intimate
with such a fellow! and of the wife of Lepidus as easy-going as
his name to take this so calmly! I wanted you to know these histo-
riettes by the way; for we have both a pretty taste in gossip. There
is one other thing I should like you to turn over in your mind. I am
told that Appius is building a propylceum at Eleusis. Should I be
foolishly vain if I also built one at the Academy? "I think so,"
you will say. Well, then, write and tell me that that is your opinion.
For myself, I am deeply attached to Athens itself. I would like some
memorial of myself to exist. I loathe sham inscriptions on statues
really representing other people. But settle it as you please, and
be kind enough to inform me on what day the Roman mysteries
fall, and how you have passed the winter. Take care of your health.
Dated the 765111 day since the battle of Leuctra!

152 CICERO

XX

M. PORCIUS CATO TO CICERO (IN CILICIA)
ROME, JUNE, 50 B.C.

I GLADLY obey the call of the state and of our friendship, in
rejoicing that your virtue, integrity, and energy, already known at
home in a most important crisis, when you were a civilian, should
be maintained abroad with the same painstaking care now that you
have military command. Therefore what I could conscientiously
do in setting forth in laudatory terms that the province had been
defended by your wisdom; that the kingdom of Ariobarzanes, as
well as the king himself, had been preserved; and that the feelings
of the allies had been won back to loyalty to our empire that I
have done by speech and vote. That a thanksgiving was decreed
I am glad, if you prefer our thanking the gods rather than giving
you the credit for a success which has been in no respect left to
chance, but has been secured for the Republic by your own eminent
prudence and self-control. But if you think a thanksgiving to be
a presumption in favour of a triumph, and therefore prefer fortune
having the credit rather than yourself, let me remind you that a
triumph does not always follow a thanksgiving; and that it is an
honour much more brilliant than a triumph for the senate to declare
its opinion, that a province has been retained rather by the upright-
ness and mildness of its governor, than by the strength of an army
or the favour of heaven: and that is what I meant to express by
my vote. And I write this to you at greater length than I usually do
write, because I wish above all things that you should think of me
as taking pains to convince you, both that I have wished for you
what I believed to be for your highest honour, and am glad that
you have got what you preferred to it. Farewell: continue to love
me; and by the way you conduct your home-journey, secure to the
allies and the Republic the advantages of your integrity and energy.

LETTERS 153

XXI

To M. PORCIUS CATO (AT ROME)
ASIA, SEPTEMBER, 50 B.C.

"RIGHT glad am I to be praised" says Hector, I think, in Nzvius
"by thee, reverend senior, who hast thyself been praised." For
certainly praise is sweet that comes from those who themselves
have lived in high repute. For myself, there is nothing I should
not consider myself to have attained either by the congratulation
contained in your letter, or the testimony borne to me in your
senatorial speech: and it was at once the highest compliment and
the greatest gratification to me, that you willingly conceded to
friendship, what you transparently conceded to truth. And if, I
don't say all, but if many were Catos in our state in which it is
a matter of wonder that there is even one what triumphal chariot
or laurel should I have compared with praise from you? For in
regard to my feelings, and in view of the ideal honesty and subtilty
of your judgment, nothing can be more complimentary than the
speech of yours, which has been copied for me by my friends. But
the reason of my wish, for I will not call it desire, I have explained
to you in a former letter. And even if it does not appear to you to
be entirely sufficient, it at any rate leads to this conclusion not
that the honour is one to excite excessive desire, but yet is one
which, if offered by the senate, ought certainly not to be rejected.
Now I hope that that House, considering the labours I have under-
gone on behalf of the state, will not think me undeserving of an
honour, especially one that has become a matter of usage. And
if this turns out to be so, all I ask of you is that to use your own
most friendly words since you have paid me what in your judg-
ment is the highest compliment, you will still "be glad" if I have
the good fortune to get what I myself have preferred. For I perceive
that you have acted, felt, and written in this sense: and the facts
themselves shew that the compliment paid me of a supplicatio
was agreeable to you, since your name appears on the decree: for
decrees of the senate of this nature are, I am aware, usually drawn
out by the warmest friends of the man concerned in the honour.

154 CICERO

I shall, I hope, soon see you, and may it be in a better state of politi-
cal affairs than my fears forebode!

XXII

To TIRO (AT PATILE)
BRUNDISIUM, 26 NOVEMBER, 50 B.C.

CICERO and his son greet Tiro warmly. We parted from you, as
you know, on the 2nd of November. We arrived at Leucas on the
6th of November, on the Jth at Actium. There we were detained
till the 8th by a storm. Thence on the 9th we arrived at Corcyra
after a charming voyage. At Corcyra we were detained by bad
weather till the i5th. On the i6th we continued our voyage to
Cassiope, a harbour of Corcyra, a distance of 120 stades. There we
were detained by winds until the 22nd. Many of those who in
this interval impatiently attempted the crossing suffered shipwreck.
On the 22nd, after dinner, we weighed anchor. Thence with a
very gentle south wind and a clear sky, in the course of that night
and the next day we arrived in high spirits on Italian soil at
Hydrus, and with the same wind next day that is, the 24th of
November at 10 o'clock in the morning we reached Brundisium,
and exactly at the same time as ourselves Terentia (who values you
very highly) made her entrance into the town. On the 26th, at
Brundisium, a slave of Cn. Plancius at length delivered to me the
ardently expected letter from you, dated the i3th of November.
It greatly lightened my anxiety: would that it had entirely removed
it! However, the physician Asclapo positively asserts that you will
shortly be well. What need is there for me at this time of day to
exhort you to take every means to re-establish your health? I know
your good sense, temperate habits, and affection for me: I am sure
you will do everything you can to join me as soon as possible.
But though I wish this, I would not have you hurry yourself
in any way. I could have wished you had shirked Lyso's concert,
for fear of incurring a fourth fit of your seven-day fever. But
since you have preferred to consult your politeness rather than
your health, be careful for the future. I have sent orders to Curius

LETTERS 155

for a douceur to be given to the physician, and that he should
advance you whatever you want, engaging to pay the money to
any agent he may name. I am leaving a horse and mule for you
at Brundisium.

At Rome I fear that the ist of January will be the beginning
of serious disturbances. I shall take a moderate line in all respects.
It only remains to beg and entreat you not to set sail rashly
seamen are wont to hurry things for their own profit: be cautious,
my dear Tiro: you have a wide and difficult sea before you. If
you can, start with Mescinius; he is usually cautious about a sea
passage: if not, travel with some man of rank, whose position may
give him influence over the ship-owner. If you take every pre-
caution in this matter and present yourself to us safe and sound,
I shall want nothing more of you. Good-bye, again and again,
dear Tiro! I am writing with the greatest earnestness about you to
the physician, to Curius, and to Lyso. Good-bye, and God bless you.

XXIII

To L. PAPIRIUS P^ETUS (AT NAPLES)
TUSCULUM, JULY, 46 B.C.

I WAS charmed with your letter, in which, first of all, what I
loved was the tenderness which prompted you to write, in alarm
lest Silius should by his news have caused me any anxiety. About
this news, not only had you written to me before in fact twice,
one letter being a duplicate of the other shewing me clearly that
you were upset, but I also had answered you in full detail, in order
that I might, as far as such a business and such a crisis admitted,
free you from your anxiety, or at any rate alleviate it. But since
you shew in your last also how anxious you are about that matter
make up your mind to this, my dear Paetus: that whatever could
possibly be accomplished by art for it is not enough nowadays to
contend with mere prudence, a sort of system must be elaborated
however, whatever could be done or effected towards winning
and securing the good will of those men I have done, and not, I
think, in vain. For I receive such attentions, such politenesses from

156 CICERO

all Caesar's favourites as make me believe myself beloved by them.
For, though genuine love is not easily distinguished from feigned,
unless some crisis occurs of a kind to test faithful affection by its
danger, as gold in the fire, there are other indications of a general
nature. But I only employ one proof to convince me that I am
loved from the heart and in sincerity namely, that my fortune
and theirs is of such a kind as to preclude any motive on their
part for pretending. In regard, again, to the man who now possesses
all power, I see no reason for my being alarmed: except the fact
that, once depart from law, everything is uncertain; and that nothing
can be guaranteed as to the future which depends on another man's
will, not to say caprice. Be that as it may, personally his feelings
have in no respect been wounded by me. For in that particular
point I have exhibited the greatest self-control. For, as in old times
I used to reckon that to speak without reserve was a privilege of
mine, since to my exertions the existence of liberty in the state was
owing, so, now that that is lost, I think it is my duty to say nothing
calculated to offend either his wishes or those of his favourites.
But if I want to avoid the credit of certain keen or witty epigrams,
I must entirely abjure a reputation for genius, which I would not
refuse to do, if I could. But after all Caesar himself has a very keen
critical faculty, and, just as your cousin Servius whom I consider
to have been a most accomplished man of letters had no difficulty
in saying: "This verse is not Plautus's, this is " because he had
acquired a sensitive ear by dint of classifying the various styles of
poets and habitual reading, so I am told that Caesar, having now
completed his volumes of bons mots, if anything is brought to him
as mine, which is not so, habitually rejects it. This he now does
all the more, because his intimates are in my company almost every
day. Now in the course of our discursive talk many remarks are
let fall, which perhaps at the time of my making them seem to them
wanting neither in literary flavour nor in piquancy. These are
conveyed to him along with the other news of the day: for so
he himself directed. Thus it comes about that if he is told of
anything besides about me, he considers that he ought not to listen
to it. Wherefore I have no need of your (Enomaus, though your
quotation of Accius's verses was very much on the spot. But what

LETTERS 157

is this jealousy, or what have I now of which anyone can be jealous?
But suppose the worst. I find that the philosophers, who alone in
my view grasp the true nature of virtue, hold that the wise man
does not pledge himself against anything except doing wrong; and
of this I consider myself clear in two ways, first in that my views
were almost absolutely correct; and second because, when I found
that we had not sufficient material force to maintain them, I was
against a trial of strength with the stronger party. Therefore, so
far as the duty of a good citizen is concerned, I am certainly not
open to reproach. What remains is that I should not say or do
anything foolish or rash against the men in power: that too, I think,
is the part of the wise man. As to the rest what this or that man
may say that I said, or the light in which he views it, or the
amount of good faith with which those who continually seek me
out and pay me attention may be acting for these things I cannot
be responsible. The result is that I console myself with the con-
sciousness of my uprightness in the past and my moderation in the
present, and apply that simile of Accius's not to jealousy, but to
fortune, which I hold as being inconstant and frail ought to be
beaten back by a strong and manly soul, as a wave is by a rock. For,
considering that Greek history is full of examples of how the
wisest men endured tyrannies either at Athens or Syracuse, when,
though their countries were enslaved, they themselves in a certain
sense remained free am I to believe that I cannot so maintain my
position as not to hurt anyone's feelings and yet not blast my own
character ?

I now come to your jests, since as an afterpiece to Accius's
CEnomaus, you have brought on the stage, not, as was his wont, an
Atellan play, but, according to the present fashion, a mime. What's
all this about a pilot-fish, a denarius, and a dish of salt fish and
cheese? In my old easy-going days I put up with that sort of thing:
but times are changed. Hirtius and Dolabella are my pupils in rheto-
ric, but my masters in the art of dining. For I think you must have
heard, if you really get all news, that their practice is to declaim
at my house, and mine to dine at theirs. Now it is no use your
making an affidavit of insolvency to me: for when you had some
property, petty profits used to keep you a little too close to business;

158 CICERO

but as things are now, seeing that you are losing money so cheer-
fully, all you have to do, when entertaining me, is to regard your-
self as accepting a "composition"; and even that loss is less annoying
when it comes from a friend than from a debtor. Yet, after all,
I don't require dinners superfluous in quantity: only let what there
is be first-rate in quality and recherche. I remember you used to
tell me stories of Phamea's dinner. Let yours be earlier, but in
other respects like that. But if you persist in bringing me back to
a dinner like your mother's, I should put up with that also. For
I should like to see the man who had the face to put on the table
for me what you describe, or even a polypus looking as red as
lupiter Miniatus. Believe me, you won't dare. Before I arrive the
fame of my new magnificence will reach you: and you will be
awestruck at it. Yet it is no use building any hope on your hors
d'ceuvre. I have quite abolished that: for in old times I found my
appetite spoilt by your olives and Lucanian sausages. But why all
this talk? Let me only get to you. By all means for I wish to
wipe away all fear from your heart go back to your old cheese-
and-sardine dish. The only expense I shall cause you will be
that you will have to have the bath heated. All the rest according
to my regular habits. What I have just been saying was all a joke.

As to Selicius's villa, you have managed the business carefully
and written most wittily. So I think I won't buy. For there is
enough salt and not enough savour.

XXIV

To L. PAPIRIUS P^xus (AT NAPLES)
TUSCULUM, JULY, 46 B.C.

BEING quite at leisure in my Tusculan villa, because I had sent
my pupils to meet him, that they might at the same time present
me in as favourable a light as possible to their friend, I received
your most delightful letter, from which I learnt that you approved
my idea of having begun now that legal proceedings are abolished
and my old supremacy in the forum is lost to keep a kind of
school, just as Dionysius, when expelled from Syracuse, is said
to have opened a school at Corinth. In short, I too am delighted

LETTERS 159

with the idea, for I secure many advantages. First and foremost,
I am strengthening my position in view of the present crisis, and
that is of primary importance at this time. How much that amounts
to I don't know: I only see that as at present advised I prefer no
one's policy to this, unless, of course, it had been better to have
died. In one's own bed, I confess it might have been, but that
did not occur: and as to the field of battle, I was not there. The
rest indeed Pompey, your friend Lentulus, Afranius perished in-
gloriously. But, it may be said, Cato died a noble death. Well,
that at any rate is in our power when we will: let us only do our
best to prevent its being as necessary to us as it was to him. That
is what I am doing. So that is the first thing I had to say. The
next is this: I am improving, in the first place in health, which I
had lost from giving up all exercise of my lungs. In the second
place, my oratorical faculty, such as it was, would have completely
dried up, had I not gone back to these exercises. The last thing I
have to say, which I rather think you will consider most important
of all, is this: I have now demolished more peacocks than you have
young pigeons! You there revel in Haterian law-sauce, I here in
Hirtian hot sauce. Come then, if you are half a man, and learn
from me the maxims which you seek: yet it is a case of "a pig
teaching Minerva." But it will be my business to see to that: as
for you, if you can't find purchasers for your foreclosures and so
fill your pot with denarii, back you must come to Rome. It is better
to die of indigestion here, than of starvation there. I see you have
lost money: I hope these friends of yours have done the same. You
are a ruined man if you don't look out. You may possibly get to
Rome on the only mule that you say you have left, since you have
eaten up your pack horse. Your seat in the school, as second master,
will be next to mine: the honour of a cushion will come by and by.

XXV

To L. PAPIRIUS P^xus (AT NAPLES)
ROME, AUGUST, 46 B.C.

I WAS doubly charmed by your letter, first because it made me
laugh myself, and secondly because I saw that you could still laugh.

l6o CICERO

Nor did I in the least object to being overwhelmed with your shafts
of ridicule, as though I were a light skirmisher in the war of wits.
What I am vexed at is that I have not been able, as I intended, to
run over to see you: for you would not have had a mere guest,
but a brother-in-arms. And such a hero! not the man whom you
used to do for by the hors d'csuvre. I now bring an unimpaired
appetite to the egg, and so the fight is maintained right up to the
roast veal. The compliments you used to pay me in old times
"What a contented person!" "What an easy guest to entertain!"
are things of the past. All my anxiety about the good of the state,
all meditating of speeches to be delivered in the senate, all getting
up of briefs I have cast to the winds. I have thrown myself into
the camp of my old enemy Epicurus not, however, with a view
to the extravagance of the present day, but to that refined splendour
of yours I mean your old style when you had money to spend
(though you never had more landed estate). Therefore prepare!
You have to deal with a man, who not only has a large appetite,
but who also knows a thing or two. You are aware of the extrava-
gance of your bourgeois gentilhomme. You must forget all your
little baskets and your omelettes. I am now so far advanced in the
art that I frequently venture to ask your friend Verrius and Camillus
to dinner what dandies! how fastidious! But think of my audacity:
I even gave Hirtius a dinner, without a peacock however. In that
dinner my cook could not imitate him in anything but the hot sauce.
So this is my way of life nowadays: in the morning I receive
not only a large number of "loyalists," who, however, look gloomy
enough, but also our exultant conquerors here, who in my case are
quite prodigal in polite and affectionate attentions. When the stream
of morning callers has ebbed, I wrap myself up in my books, either
writing or reading. There are also some visitors who listen to my
discourses under the belief of my being a man of learning, because
I am a trifle more learned than themselves. After that all my time
is given to my bodily comfort. I have mourned for my country
more deeply and longer than any mother for her only son. But take
care, if you love me, to keep your health, lest I should take advantage
of your being laid up to eat you out of house and home. For I am
resolved not to spare you even when you are ill.

LETTERS l6l

XXVI

To AULUS GECINA (IN EXILE)
ROME, SEPTEMBER, 46 B.C.

I AM afraid you may think me remiss in my attentions to you,
which, in view of our close union resulting from many mutual
services and kindred tastes, ought never to be lacking. In spite of
that I fear you do find me wanting in the matter of writing. The
fact is, I would have sent you a letter long ago and on frequent
occasions, had I not, from expecting day after day to have some
better news for you, wished to fill my letter with congratulation
rather than with exhortations to courage. As it is, I shall shortly,
I hope, have to congratulate you: and so I put off that subject for
a letter to another time. But in this letter I think that your courage
which I am told and hope is not at all shaken ought to be
repeatedly braced by the authority of a man, who, if not the wisest
in the world, is yet the most devoted to you: and that not with
such words as I should use to console one utterly crushed and
bereft of all hope of restoration, but as to one of whose rehabilitation
I have no more doubt than I remember that you had of mine. For
when those men had driven me from the Republic, who thought
that it could not fall while I was on my feet, I remember hearing
from many visitors from Asia, in which country you then were,
that you were emphatic as to my glorious and rapid restoration.
If that system, so to speak, of Tuscan augury which you had in-
herited from your noble and excellent father did not deceive you,
neither will our power of divination deceive me; which I have
acquired from the writings and maxims of the greatest savants,
and, as you know, by a very diligent study of their teaching, as
well as by an extensive experience in managing public business,
and from the great vicissitudes of fortune which I have encountered.
And this divination I am the more inclined to trust, from the
fact that it never once deceived me in the late troubles, in spite of
their obscurity and confusion. I would have told you what events
I foretold, were I not afraid to be thought to be making up a story
after the event. Yet, after all, I have numberless witnesses to the

I 62 CICERO

fact that I warned Pompey not to form a union with Caesar, and
afterwards not to sever it. By this union I saw that the power
of the senate would be broken, by its severance a civil war be
provoked. And yet I was very intimate with Caesar, and had a
very great regard for Pompey, but my advice was at once loyal to
Pompey and in the best interests of both alike. My other predictions
I pass over; for I would not have Caesar think that I gave Pompey
advice, by which, if he had followed it, Caesar himself would have
now been a man of illustrious character in the state indeed, and
the first man in it, but yet not in possession of the great power
he now wields. I gave it as my opinion that he should go to Spain;
and if he had done so, there would have been no civil war at all.
That Caesar should be allowed to stand for the consulship in his
absence I did not so much contend to be constitutional, as that,
since the law had been passed by the people at the instance of
Pompey himself when consul, it should be done. The pretext for
hostilities was given. What advice or remonstrance did I omit, when
urging that any peace, even the most inequitable, should be preferred
to the most righteous war? My advice was overruled, not so much
by Pompey for he was affected by it as by those who, relying
on him as a military leader, thought that a victory in that war would
be highly conducive to their private interests and personal ambi-
tions. The war was begun without my taking any active part in
it; it was forcibly removed from Italy, while I remained there as
long as I could. But honour had greater weight with me than fear:
I had scruples about failing to support Pompey's safety, when on
a certain occasion he had not failed to support mine. Accordingly,
overpowered by a feeling of duty, or by what the loyalists would
say, or by a regard for my honour whichever you please like
Amphiaraus in the play, I went deliberately, and fully aware of
what I was doing, "to ruin full displayed before my eyes." In this
war there was not a single disaster that I did not foretell. There-
fore, since, after the manner of augurs and astrologers, I too, as
a state augur, have by my previous predictions established the credit
of my prophetic power and knowledge of divination in your eyes, my
prediction will justly claim to be believed. Well, then, the prophecy
I now give you does not rest on the flight of a bird nor the note

LETTERS 163

of a bird of good omen on the left according to the system of
our augural college nor on the normal and audible pattering of
the corn of the sacred chickens. I have other signs to note; and
if they are not more infallible than those, yet after all they are less
obscure or misleading. Now omens as to the future are observed
by me in what I may call a twofold method: the one I deduce from
Caesar himself, the other from the nature and complexion of the
political situation. Caesar's characteristics are these: a disposition
naturally placable and clement as delineated in your brilliant book
of "Grievances" and a great liking also for superior talent, such as
your own. Besides this, he is relenting at the expressed wishes of a
large number of your friends, which are well-grounded and inspired
by affection, not hollow and self-seeking. Under this head the unani-
mous feeling of Etruria will have great influence on him.

Why, then you may ask have these things as yet had no effect ?
Why, because he thinks if he grants you yours, he cannot resist
the applications of numerous petitioners with whom to all appear-
ance he has juster grounds for anger. "What hope, then," you will
say, "from an angry man?" Why, he knows very well that he will
draw deep draughts of praise from the same fountain, from which
he has been already though sparingly bespattered. Lastly, he is
a man very acute and farseeing: he knows very well that a man
like you far and away the greatest noble in an important district
of Italy, and in the state at large the equal of anyone of your
generation, however eminent, whether in ability or popularity or
reputation among the Roman people cannot much longer be de-
barred from taking part in public affairs. He will be unwilling
that you should, as you would sooner or later, have time to thank
for this rather than his favour.

So much for Czsar. Now I will speak of the nature of the actual
situation. There is no one so bitterly opposed to the cause, which
Pompey undertook with better intentions than provisions, as to
venture to call us bad citizens or dishonest men. On this head I
am always struck with astonishment at Caesar's sobriety, fairness,
and wisdom. He never speaks of Pompey except in the most re-
spectful terms. "But," you will say, "in regard to him as a public
man his actions have often been bitter enough." Those were acts

164 CICERO

of war and victory, not of Caesar. But see with what open arms
he has received us! Cassius he has made his legate; Brutus governor
of Gaul; Sulpicius of Greece; Marcellus, with whom he was more
angry than with anyone, he has restored with the utmost considera-
tion for his rank. To what, then, does all this tend? The nature of
things and of the political situation will not suffer, nor will any con-
stitutional theory whether it remain as it is or is changed permit,
first, that the civil and personal position of all should not be alike
when the merits of their cases are the same; and, secondly, that good
men and good citizens of unblemished character should not return
to a state, into which so many have returned after having been
condemned of atrocious crimes.

That is my prediction. If I had felt any doubt about it I would
not have employed it in preference to a consolation which would
have easily enabled me to support a man of spirit. It is this: If
you had taken up arms for the Republic for so you then thought
with the full assurance of victory, you would not deserve special
commendation. But if, in view of the uncertainty attaching to all
wars, you had taken into consideration the possibility of our being
beaten, you ought not, while fully prepared to face success, to be
yet utterly unable to endure failure. I would have urged also what
a consolation the consciousness of your action, what a delightful
distraction in adversity, literature ought to be. I would have re-
called to your mind the signal disasters not only of men of old
times, but of those of our own day also, whether they were your
leaders or your comrades. I would even have named many cases
of illustrious foreigners: for the recollection of what I may call a
common law and of the conditions of human existence softens grief.
I would also have explained the nature of our life here in Rome,
how bewildering the disorder, how universal the chaos: for it must
needs cause less regret to be absent from a state in disruption, than
from one well-ordered. But there is no occasion for anything of
this sort. I shall soon see you, as I hope, or rather as I clearly per-
ceive, in enjoyment of your civil rights. Meanwhile, to you in your
absence, as also to your son who is here the express image of your
soul and person, and a man of unsurpassable firmness and excellence
I have long ere this both promised and tendered practically my

LETTERS 165

zeal, duty, exertions, and labours: all the more so now that Caesar
daily receives me with more open arms, while his intimate friends
distinguish me above everyone. Any influence or favour I may gain
with him I will employ in your service. Be sure, for your part, to
support yourself not only with courage, but also with the brightest
hopes.

XXVII

SERVIUS SULPICIUS TO CICERO (AT ASTURA)
ATHENS, MARCH, 45 B.C.

WHEN I received the news of your daughter Tullia's death, I
was indeed as much grieved and distressed as I was bound to be,
and looked upon it as a calamity in which I shared. For, if I had
been at home, I should not have failed to be at your side, and should
have made my sorrow plain to you face to face. That kind of
consolation involves much distress and pain, because the relations
and friends, whose part it is to offer it, are themselves overcome by
an equal sorrow. They cannot attempt it without many tears, so
that they seem to require consolation themselves rather than to be
able to afford it to others. Still I have decided to set down briefly
for your benefit such thoughts as have occurred to my mind, not
because I suppose them to be unknown to you, but because your
sorrow may perhaps hinder you from being so keenly alive to them.

Why is it that a private grief should agitate you so deeply? Think
how fortune has hitherto dealt with us. Reflect that we have had
snatched from us what ought to be no less dear to human beings
than their children country, honour, rank, every political dis-
tinction. What additional wound to your feelings could be inflicted
by this particular loss? Or where is the heart that should not by
this time have lost all sensibility and learned to regard everything
else as of minor importance? Is it on her account, pray, that you
sorrow? How many times have you recurred to the thought and
I have often been struck with the same idea that in times like
these theirs is far from being the worst fate to whom it has been
granted to exchange life for a painless death ? Now what was there
at such an epoch that could greatly tempt her to live? What scope,

I 66 CICERO

what hope, what heart's solace? That she might spend her life
with some young and distinguished husband? How impossible for
a man of your rank to select from the present generation of young
men a son-in-law, to whose honour you might think yourself safe
in trusting your child! Was it that she might bear children to
cheer her with the sight of their vigorous youth ? who might by their
own character maintain the position handed down to them by their
parent, might be expected to stand for the offices in their order,
might exercise their freedom in supporting their friends? What
single one of these prospects has not been taken away before it
was given? But, it will be said, after all it is an evil to lose one's
children. Yes, it is: only it is a worse one to endure and submit to
the present state of things.

I wish to mention to you a circumstance which gave me no
common consolation, on the chance of its also proving capable of
diminishing your sorrow. On my voyage from Asia, as I was sailing
from ALgina. towards Megara, I began to survey the localities that
were on every side of me. Behind me was ^Egina, in front Megara,
on my right Piraeus, on my left Corinth: towns which at one time
were most flourishing, but now lay before my eyes in ruin and
decay. I began to reflect to myself thus: "Hah! do we mannikins
feel rebellious if one of us perishes or is killed we whose life ought
to be still shorter when the corpses of so many towns lie in help-
less ruin? Will you please, Servius, restrain yourself and recollect
that you are born a mortal man?" Believe me, I was no little
strengthened by that reflexion. Now take the trouble, if you agree
with me, to put this thought before your eyes. Not long ago all
those most illustrious men perished at one blow: the empire of the
Roman people suffered that huge loss : all the provinces were shaken
to their foundations. If you have become the poorer by the frail
spirit of one poor girl, are you agitated thus violently ? If she had
not died now, she would yet have had to die a few years hence,
for she was mortal born. You, too, withdraw soul and thought
from such things, and rather remember those which become the
part you have played in life: that she lived as long as life had
anything to give her; that her life outlasted that of the Republic;
that she lived to see you her own father prastor, consul, and

LETTERS 167

augur; that she married young men of the highest rank; that she
had enjoyed nearly every possible blessing; that, when the Republic
fell, she departed from life. What fault have you or she to find
with fortune on this score? In fine, do not forget that you are
Cicero, and a man accustomed to instruct and advise others; and
do not imitate bad physicians, who in the diseases of others profess
to understand the art of healing, but are unable to prescribe for
themselves. Rather suggest to yourself and bring home to your
own mind the very maxims which you are accustomed to impress
upon others. There is no sorrow beyond the power of time at
length to diminish and soften: it is a reflexion on you that you
should wait for this period, and not rather anticipate that result
by the aid of your wisdom. But if there is any consciousness still
existing in the world below, such was her love for you and her
dutiful affection for all her family, that she certainly does not wish
you to act as you are acting. Grant this to her your lost one!
Grant it to your friends and comrades who mourn with you in
your sorrow! Grant it to your country, that if the need arises she
may have the use of your services and advice.

Finally since we are reduced by fortune to the necessity of
taking precautions on this point also do not allow anyone to
think that you are not mourning so much for your daughter as
for the state of public affairs and the victory of others. I am ashamed
to say any more to you on this subject, lest I should appear to
distrust your wisdom. Therefore I will only make one suggestion
before bringing my letter to an end. We have seen you on many
occasions bear good fortune with a noble dignity which greatly
enhanced your fame: now is the time for you to convince us that
you are able to bear bad fortune equally well, and that it does not
appear to you to be a heavier burden than you ought to think it.
I would not have this be the only one of all the virtues that you
do not possess.

As far as I am concerned, when I learn that your mind is more
composed, I will write you an account of what is going on here,
and of the condition of the province. Good-bye.

I 68 CICERO

XXVIII

To SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA)
FICULEA, APRIL, 45 B.C.

YES, indeed, my dear Servius, I would have wished as you say
that you had been by my side at the time of my grievous loss.
How much help your presence might have given me, both by con-
solation and by your taking an almost equal share in my sorrow,
I can easily gather from the fact that after reading your letter I
experienced a great feeling of relief. For not only was what you
wrote calculated to soothe a mourner, but in offering me consola-
tion you manifested no slight sorrow of heart yourself. Yet, after
all, your son Servius by all the kindnesses of which such a time
admitted made it evident, both how much he personally valued
me, and how gratifying to you he thought such affection for me
would be. His kind offices have of course often been pleasanter to
me, yet never more acceptable. For myself again, it is not only your
words and (I had almost said) your partnership in my sorrow that
consoles me, it is your character also. For I think it a disgrace that
I should not bear my loss as you a man of such wisdom think
it should be borne. But at times I am taken by surprise and
scarcely offer any resistance to my grief, because those consolations
fail me, which were not wanting in a similar misfortune to those
others, whose examples I put before my eyes. For instance, Quintus
Maximus, who lost a son who had been consul and was of illustrious
character and brilliant achievements, and Lucius Paullus, who lost
two within seven days, and your kinsman Gallus and M. Cato,
who each lost a son of the highest character and valour all lived in
circumstances which permitted their own great position, earned by
their public services, to assuage their grief. In my case, after losing
the honours which you yourself mention, and which I had gained
by the greatest possible exertions, there was only that one solace left
which has now been torn away. My sad musings were not inter-
rupted by the business of my friends, nor by the management of
public affairs: there was nothing I cared to do in the forum: I
could not bear the sight of the senate-house; I thought as was

LETTERS 169

the fact that I had lost all the fruits both of my industry and of
fortune. But while I thought that I shared these losses with you
and certain others, and while I was conquering my feelings and
forcing myself to bear them with patience, I had a refuge, one bosom
where I could find repose, one in whose conversation and sweetness
I could lay aside all anxieties and sorrows. But now, after such a
crushing blow as this, the wounds which seemed to have healed break
out afresh. For there is no republic now to offer me a refuge and a
consolation by its good fortunes when I leave my home in sorrow,
as there once was a home to receive me when I returned saddened
by the state of public affairs. Hence I absent myself both from
home and forum, because home can no longer console the sorrow
which public affairs cause me, nor public affairs that which I suffer
at home. All the more I look forward to your coming, and long
to see you as soon as possible. No reasoning can give me greater
solace than a renewal of our intercourse and conversation. However,
I hope your arrival is approaching, for that is what I am told. For
myself, while I have many reasons for wishing to see you as soon
as possible, there is this one especially that we may discuss before-
hand on what principles we should live through this period of
entire submission to the will of one man who is at once wise and
liberal, far, as I think I perceive, from being hostile to me, and
very friendly to you. But though that is so, yet it is a matter for
serious thought what plans, I don't say of action, but of passing a
quiet life by his leave and kindness, we should adopt. Good-bye.

XXIX
To ATTICUS (AT ROME)

PUTEOLI, 21 DECEMBER, 45 B.C.

WELL, I have no reason after all to repent my formidable guest!
For he made himself exceedingly pleasant. But on his arrival at
the villa of Philippus on the evening of the second day of the
Saturnalia, the villa was so choke-full of soldiers that there was
scarcely a dining-room left for Caesar himself to dine in. Two
thousand men, if you please! I was in a great taking as to what

I7O CICERO

was to happen the next day; and so Cassius Barba came to my aid
and gave me guards. A camp was pitched in the open, the villa
was put in a state of defence. He stayed with Philippus on the
third day of the Saturnalia till one o'clock, without admitting any-
one. He was engaged on his accounts, I think, with Balbus. Then
he took a walk on the beach. After two he went to the bath. Then
he heard about Mamurra without changing countenance. He was
anointed: took his place at the table. He was under a course of
emetics, and so ate and drank without scruple and as suited his
taste. It was a very good dinner, and well served, and not only so, but

"Well-cooked, well-seasoned food, with rare discourse:
A banquet in a word to cheer the heart."

Besides this, the staff were entertained in three rooms in a very
liberal style. The freedmen of lower rank and the slaves had every-
thing they could want. But the upper sort had a really recherche
dinner. In fact, I shewed that I was somebody. However, he is
not a guest to whom one would say, "Pray look me up again on
your way back." Once is enough. We didn't say a word about
politics. There was plenty of literary talk. In short, he was pleased
and enjoyed himself. He said he should stay one day at Puteoli,
another at Baiae. That's the story of the entertainment, or I might
call it the billeting on me trying to the temper, but not seriously
inconvenient. I am staying on here for a short time and then go to
Tusculum. When he was passing Dolabella's villa, the whole guard
formed up on the right and left of his horse, and nowhere else.
This I was told by Nicias.

XXX

To ATTICUS (AT ROME)
MATIUS'S SUBURBAN VILLA, 7 APRIL, 44 B.C.

I HAVE come on a visit to the man, of whom I was talking to you
this morning. His view is that "the state of things is perfectly
shocking: that there is no way out of the imbroglio. For if a man
of Caesar's genius failed, who can hope to succeed?" In short, he
says that the ruin is complete. I am not sure that he is wrong; but
then he rejoices in it, and declares that within twenty days there

LETTERS 171

will be a rising in Gaul: that he has not had any conversation
with anyone except Lepidus since the Ides of March: finally that
these things can't pass off like this. What a wise man Oppius is,
who regrets Caesar quite as much, but yet says nothing that can
offend any loyalist! But enough of this. Pray don't be idle about
writing me word of anything new, for I expect a great deal. Among
other things, whether we can rely on Sextus Pompeius; but above
all about our friend Brutus, of whom my host says that Caesar was
in the habit of remarking: "It is of great importance what that man
wishes; at any rate, whatever he wishes he wishes strongly": and
that he noticed, when he was pleading for Deiotarus at Nicaea, that
he seemed to speak with great spirit and freedom. Also for I like
to jot down things as they occur to me that when on the request
of Sestius I went to Caesar's house, and was sitting waiting till I
was called in, he remarked: "Can I doubt that I am exceedingly
disliked, when Marcus Cicero has to sit waiting and cannot see
me at his own convenience? And yet if there is a good-natured
man in the world it is he; still I feel no doubt that he heartily
dislikes me." This and a good deal of the same sort. But to my
purpose: Whatever the news, small as well as great, write and
tell me of it. I will on my side let nothing pass.

XXXI

To ATTICUS (AT ROME)
ASTURA, ii JUNE, 44 B.C.

AT length a letter-carrier from my son! And, by Hercules, a
letter elegantly expressed, shewing in itself some progress. Others
also give me excellent reports of him. Leonides, however, still sticks
to his favourite "at present." But Herodes speaks in the highest
terms of him. In short, I am glad even to be deceived in this matter,
and am not sorry to be credulous. Pray let me know if Statius
has written to you anything of importance to me.

172 CICERO

XXXII

To ATTICUS (AT ROME)
ASTURA, 13 JUNE, 44 B.C.

CONFOUND Lucius Antonius, if he makes himself troublesome to
the Buthrotians! I have drawn out a deposition which shall be
signed and sealed whenever you please. As for the money of the
Arpinates, if the aedile L. Fadius asks for it, pay him back every
farthing. In a previous letter I mentioned to you a sum of no
sestertia to be paid to Statius. If, then, Fadius applies for the
money, I wish it paid to him, and to no one except Fadius I think that
amount was put into my hands, and I have written to Eros to
produce it.

I can't stand the Queen: and the voucher for her promises,
Hammonius, knows that I have good cause for saying so. What
she promised, indeed, were all things of the learned sort and suit-
able to my character such as I could avow even in a public meeting.
As for Sara, besides finding him to be an unprincipled rascal, I
also found him inclined to give himself airs to me. I only saw
him once at my house. And when I asked him politely what I
could do for him, he said that he had come in hopes of finding
Atticus. The Queen's insolence, too, when she was living in Caesar's
trans-Tiberine villa, I cannot recall without a pang. I won't have
anything to do therefore with that lot. They think not so much
that I have no spirit, as that I have scarcely any proper pride at
all. My leaving Italy is hindered by Eros's way of doing business.
For whereas from the balances struck by him on the 5th of April
I ought to be well off, I am obliged to borrow, while the receipts
from those paying properties of mine I think have been put aside
for building the shrine. But I have charged Tiro to see to all this,
whom I am sending to Rome for the express purpose.

I did not wish to add to your existing embarrassments. The
steadier the conduct of my son, the more I am vexed at his being
hampered. For he never mentioned the subject to me the first
person to whom he should have done so. But he said in a letter
to Tiro that he had received nothing since the ist of April for

LETTERS 173

that was the end of his financial year. Now I know that your own
kind feeling always caused you to be of opinion that he ought to
be treated not only with liberality, but with splendour and gener-
osity, and that you also considered that to be due to my position.
Wherefore pray see I would not have troubled you if I could
have done it through anyone else that he has a bill of exchange
at Athens for his year's allowance. Eros will pay you the money.
I am sending Tiro on that business. Pray therefore see to it, and
write and tell me any idea you may have on the subject.

XXXIII

To C. TREBATIUS TESTA (AT ROME)
(?) TUSCULUM, JUNE, 44 B.C.

You jeered at me yesterday amidst our cups, for having said that
it was a disputed point whether an heir could lawfully prosecute
on an embezzlement which had been committed before he became
the owner. Accordingly, though I returned home full of wine and
late in the evening, I marked the section in which that question
is treated and caused it to be copied out and sent to you. I wanted
to convince you that the doctrine which you said was held by no
one was maintained by Sextus ALYms, Manius Manilius, Marcus
Brutus. Nevertheless, I concur with Sczvola and Testa.

XXXIV

M. CICERO (THE YOUNGER) TO TIRO
ATHENS, AUGUST, 44 B.C.

AFTER I had been anxiously expecting letter-carriers day after day,
at length they arrived forty-six days after they left you. Their
arrival was most welcome to me: for while I took the greatest
possible pleasure in the letter of the kindest and most beloved of
fathers, still your most delightful letter put a finishing stroke to my
joy. So I no longer repent of having suspended writing for a time,
but am rather rejoiced at it; for I have reaped a great reward in your
kindness from my pen having been silent. I am therefore exceed-

174 CICERO

ingly glad that you have unhesitatingly accepted my excuse. I am
sure, dearest Tiro, that the reports about me which reach you answer
your best wishes and hopes. I will make them good, and will do my
best that this belief in me, which day by day becomes more and more
en evidence, shall be doubled. Wherefore you may with confidence
and assurance fulfil your promise of being the trumpeter of my
reputation. For the errors of my youth have caused me so much
remorse and suffering, that not only does my heart shrink from
what I did, my very ears abhor the mention of it. And of this anguish
and sorrow I know and am assured that you have taken your share.
And I don't wonder at it! for while you wished me all success for
my sake, you did so also for your own; for I have ever meant you to
be my partner in all my good fortunes. Since, therefore, you have
suffered sorrow through me, I will now take care that through me
your joy shall be doubled. Let me assure you that my very close
attachment to Cratippus is that of a son rather than a pupil: for
though I enjoy his lectures, I am also specially charmed with his
delightful manners. I spend whole days with him, and often part
of the night: for I induce him to dine with me as often as possible.
This intimacy having been established, he often drops in upon us
unexpectedly while we are at dinner, and, laying aside the stiff airs of
a philosopher, joins in our jests with the greatest possible freedom.
He is such a man so delightful, so distinguished that you should
take pains to make his acquaintance at the earliest possible oppor-
tunity. I need hardly mention Bruttius, whom I never allow to leave
my side. He is a man of a strict and moral life, as well as being
the most delightful company. For in him fun is not divorced from
literature and the daily philosophical inquiries which we make in
common. I have hired a residence next door to him, and as far as
I can with my poor pittance I subsidize his narrow means. Farther-
more, I have begun practising declamation in Greek with Cassius;
in Latin I like having my practice with Bruttius. My intimate
friends and daily company are those whom Cratippus brought with
him from Mitylene good scholars, of whom he has the highest
opinion. I also see a great deal of Epicrates, the leading man at
Athens, and Leonides, and other men of that sort. So now you know
how I am going on.

LETTERS 175

You remark in your letter on the character of Gorgias. The fact
is, I found him very useful in my daily practice of declamation; but
I subordinated everything to obeying my father's injunctions, for he
had written ordering me to give him up at once. I wouldn't shilly-
shally about the business, for fear my making a fuss should cause
my father to harbour some suspicion. Moreover, it occurred to me
that it would be offensive for me to express an opinion on a decision
of my father's. However, your interest and advice are welcome and
acceptable. Your apology for lack of time I quite accept; for I know
how busy you always are. I am very glad that you have bought an
estate, and you have my best wishes for the success of your purchase.
Don't be surprised at my congratulations coming in at this point in
my letter, for it was at the corresponding point in yours that you told
me of your purchase. You are a man of property! You must drop
your city manners: you have become a Roman country-gentleman.
How clearly I have your dearest face before my eyes at this moment!
For I seem to see you buying things for the farm, talking to your
bailiff, saving the seeds at dessert in the corner of your cloak. But as
to the matter of money, I am as sorry as you that I was not on the
spot to help you. But do not doubt, my dear Tiro, of my assisting
you in the future, if fortune does but stand by me; especially as I
know that this estate has been purchased for our joint advantage.
As to my commissions about which you are taking trouble many
thanks! But I beg you to send me a secretary at the earliest oppor-
tunity if possible a Greek; for he will save me a great deal of trouble
in copying out notes. Above all, take care of your health, that we
may have some literary talk together hereafter. I commend Anteros
to you.

XXXV

QUINTUS CICERO TO TIRO
(TIME AND PLACE UNCERTAIN)

I HAVE castigated you, at least with the silent reproach of my
thoughts, because this is the second packet that has arrived without a
letter from you. You cannot escape the penalty for this crime by your
own advocacy: you will have to call Marcus to your aid, and don't

I 76 CICERO

be too sure that even he, though he should compose a speech after
long study and a great expenditure of midnight oil, would be able to
establish your innocence. In plain terms, I beg you to do as I remem-
ber my mother used to do. It was her custom to put a seal on wine-
jars even when empty to prevent any being labelled empty that had
been surreptitiously drained. In the same way, I beg you, even if you
have nothing to write about, to write all the same, lest you be thought
to have sought a cover for idleness: for I always find the news in
your letters trustworthy and welcome. Love me, and good-bye.

XXXVI

To M. IUNIUS BRUTUS (IN MACEDONIA)
ROME, MIDDLE OF JULY, 43 B.C.

You have Messalla with you. What letter, therefore, can I write
with such minute care as to enable me to explain to you what is being
done and what is occurring in public affairs, more thoroughly than
he will describe them to you, who has at once the most intimate
knowledge of everything, and the talent for unfolding and conveying
it to you in the best possible manner? For beware of thinking,
Brutus for though it is unnecessary for me to write to you what
you know already, yet I cannot pass over in silence such eminence
in every kind of greatness beware of thinking, I say, that he has
any parallel in honesty and firmness, care and zeal for the Republic.
So much so that in him eloquence in which he is extraordinarily
eminent scarcely seems to offer any opportunity for praise. Yet in
this accomplishment itself his wisdom is made more evident; with
such excellent judgment and with so much acuteness has he practised
himself in the most genuine style of rhetoric. Such also is his
industry, and so great the amount of midnight labour that he bestows
on this study, that the chief thanks would not seem to be due to
natural genius, great as it is in his case. But my affection carries me
away: for it is not the purpose of this letter to praise Messalla, espe-
cially to Brutus, to whom his excellence is not less known than it is
to me, and these particular accomplishments of his which I am
praising even better. Grieved as I was to let him go from my side,
my one consolation was that in going to vou who are to me a

LETTERS 177

second self, he was performing a duty and following the path of
the truest glory. But enough of this. I now come, after a long
interval of time, to a certain letter of yours, in which, while paying
me many compliments, you find one fault with me that I was
excessive and, as it were, extravagant in proposing votes of honour.
That is your criticism: another's, perhaps, might be that I was too
stern in inflicting punishment and exacting penalties, unless by
chance you blame me for both. If that is so, I desire that my principle
in both these things should be very clearly known to you. And I do
not rely solely on the dictum of Solon, who was at once the wisest
of the Seven and the only lawgiver among them. He said that a state
was kept together by two things reward and punishment. Of
course there is a certain moderation to be observed in both, as in
everything else, and what we may call a golden mean in both these
things. But I have no intention to dilate on such an important sub-
ject in this place.

But what has been my aim during this war in the motions I have
made in the senate I think it will not be out of place to explain.
After the death of Ca?sar and your ever memorable Ides of March,
Brutus, you have not forgotten what I said had been omitted by
you and your colleagues, and what a heavy cloud I declared to be
hanging over the Republic. A great pest had been removed by your
means, a great blot on the Roman people wiped out, immense glory
in truth acquired by yourselves: but an engine for exercising kingly
power had been put into the hands of Lepidus and Antony, of whom
the former was the more fickle of the two, the latter the more
corrupt, but both of whom dreaded peace and were enemies to
quiet. Against these men, inflamed with the ambition of revolu-
tionizing the state, we had no protecting force to oppose. For the
fact of the matter was this: the state had become roused as one
man to maintain its liberty; I at the time was even excessively war-
like; you, perhaps with more wisdom, quitted the city which you had
liberated, and when Italy offered you her services declined them.
Accordingly, when I saw the city in the possession of parricides, and
that neither you nor Cassius could remain in it with safety, and that
it was held down by Antony's armed guards, I thought that I too
ought to leave it: for a city held down by traitors, with all opportunity

178 CICERO

of giving aid cut ofT, was a shocking spectacle. But the same spirit
as always had animated me, staunch to the love of country, did not
admit the thought of a departure from its dangers. Accordingly,
in the very midst of my voyage to Achaia, when in the period of the
Etesian gales a south wind as though remonstrating against my
design had brought me back to Italy, I saw you at Velia and was
much distressed: for you were on the point of leaving the country,
Brutus leaving it, I say, for our friends the Stoics deny that wise
men ever "flee." As soon as I reached Rome I at once threw myself
in opposition to Antony's treason and insane policy: and having
roused his wrath against me, I began entering upon a policy truly
Brutus-like for this is the distinctive mark of your family that of
freeing my country. The rest of the story is too long to tell, and must
be passed over by me, for it is about myself. I will only say this
much: that this young Caesar, thanks to whom we still exist, if we
would confess the truth, was a stream from the fountainhead of
my policy. To him I voted honours, none indeed, Brutus, that were
not his due, none that were not inevitable. For directly we began
the recovery of liberty, when the divine excellence of even Decimus
Brutus had not yet bestirred itself sufficiently to give us an indication
of the truth, and when our sole protection depended on the boy who
had shaken Antony from our shoulders, what honour was there
that he did not deserve to have decreed to him? However, all I
then proposed for him was a complimentary vote of thanks, and
that too expressed with moderation. I also proposed a decree con-
ferring imperium on him, which, although it seemed too great a
compliment for one of his age, was yet necessary for one command-
ing an army for what is an army without a commander with
imperium? Philippus proposed a statue; Servius at first proposed a
licence to stand for office before the regular time. Servilius afterwards
proposed that the time should be still farther curtailed. At that time
nothing was thought too good for him.

But somehow men are more easily found who are liberal at a time
of alarm, than grateful when victory has been won. For when that
most joyful day of Decimus Brutus's relief from blockade had
dawned on the Republic and happened also to be his birthday, I
proposed that the name of Brutus should be entered in the fasti under

LETTERS 179

that date. And in that I followed the example of our ancestors, who
paid this honour to the woman Laurentia, at whose altar in the
Velabrum you pontiffs are accustomed to offer service. And when I
proposed this honour to Brutus I wished that there should be in the
fasti an eternal memorial of a most welcome victory : and yet on that
very day I discovered that the ill-disposed in the senate were some-
what in a majority over the grateful. In the course of those same days
I lavished honours if you like that word upon the dead Hirtius,
Pansa, and even Aquila. And who has any fault to find with that,
unless he be one who, no sooner an alarm is over, forgets the past
danger? There was added to this grateful memorial of a benefit
received some consideration of what would be for the good of
posterity also; for I wished that there should exist some perpetual
record of the popular execration of our most ruthless enemies. I
suspect that the next step does not meet with your approbation. It
was disapproved by your friends, who are indeed most excellent
citizens, but inexperienced in public business. I mean my proposing
an ovation for Caesar. For myself, however though I am perhaps
wrong, and I am not a man who believes his own way necessarily
right I think that in the course of this war I never took a more
prudent step. The reason for this I must not reveal, lest I should
seem to have a sense of favours to come rather than to be grateful
for those received. I have said too much already : let us look at other
points. I proposed honours to Decimus Brutus, and also to Lucius
Plancus. Those indeed are noble spirits whose spur to action is glory:
but the senate also is wise to avail itself of any means provided that
they are honourable by which it thinks that a particular man can be
induced to support the Republic. But you say I am blamed in
regard to Lepidus: for, having placed his statue on the rostra, I also
voted for its removal. I tried by paying him a compliment to recall
him from his insane policy. The infatuation of that most unstable of
men rendered my prudence futile. Yet all the same more good was
done by demolishing the statue of Lepidus, than harm by putting
it up.

Enough about honours; now I must say a few words about penal-
ties. For I have gathered from frequent expressions in your letters
that in regard to those whom you have conquered in war, you desire

l8o CICERO

that your clemency should be praised. I hold, indeed, that you do and
say nothing but what becomes a philosopher. But to omit the punish-
ment of a crime for that is what "pardoning" amounts to even
if it is endurable in other cases, is mischievous in a war like this.
For there has been no civil war, of all that have occurred in the state
within my memory, in which there was not certain to be some form
of constitution remaining, whichever of the two sides prevailed. In
this war, if we are victorious, I should not find it easy to affirm what
kind of constitution we are likely to have; if we are conquered,
there will certainly never be any. I therefore proposed severe meas-
ures against Antony, and severe ones also against Lepidus, and not
so much out of revenge as in order that I might for the present
prevent unprincipled men by this terror from attacking their country,
and might for the future establish a warning for all who were
minded to imitate their infatuation.

However, this proposal was not mine more than it was everybody's.
The point in it which had the appearance of cruelty was that the
penalty extended to the children who did not deserve any. But that
is a thing of long standing and characteristic of all states. For
instance, the children of Themistocles were in poverty. And if the
same penalty attaches to citizens legally condemned in court, how
could we be more indulgent to public enemies? What, moreover,
can anyone say against me when he must confess that, had that man
conquered, he would have been still more revengeful towards me?

Here you have the principles which dictated my senatorial pro-
posals, at any rate in regard to this class of honours and penalties.
For, in regard to other matters, I think you have been told what
opinions I have expressed and what votes I have given. But all this
is not so very pressing. What is really pressing, Brutus, is that you
should come to Italy with your army as soon as possible. There is the
greatest anxiety for your arrival. Directly you reach Italy all classes
will flock to you. For if we win the victory and we had in fact
won a most glorious one, only that Lepidus set his heart on ruining
everything and perishing himself with all his friends there will be
need of your counsel in establishing some form of constitution. And
even if there is still some fighting left to be done, our greatest hope is
both in your personal influence and in the material strength of your

LETTERS l8l

army. But make haste, in God's name! You know the importance
of seizing the right moment, and of rapidity. What pains I am tak-
ing in the interests of your sister's children, I hope you know from
the letters of your mother and sister. In undertaking their cause I
shew more regard to your affection, which is very precious to me,
than, as some think, to my own consistency. But there is nothing
in which I more wish to be and to seem consistent than in loving you.

LETTERS OF PLINY

TRANSLATED BY
WILLIAM MELMOTH

REVISED BY
F. C. T. BOSANQUET

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

GAIUS PLINIUS Cx.cii.ivs SECUNDUS, usually known as Pliny the
Younger, was born at Como in 62 A.D. He was only eight years old
when his father, Czcilius, died, and he was adopted by his uncle, the
elder Pliny, author of the "Natural History." He was carefully educated,
studying rhetoric under Quintilian and other famous teachers, and he
became the most eloquent pleader of his time. In this and in much else
he imitated Cicero, who had by this time come to be the recognized
master of Latin style. While still young he served as military tribune in
Syria, but he does not seem to have taken zealously to a soldier's life. On
his return he entered politics under the Emperor Domitian, and in the
year 100 A.D. was appointed consul by Trajan and admitted to confiden-
tial intercourse with that emperor. Later, while he was governor of
Bithynia, he was in the habit of submitting every point of policy to his
master, and the correspondence between Trajan and him, which forms
the last part of the present selection, is of a high degree of interest, both on
account of the subjects discussed and for the light thrown on the char-
acters of the two men. He is supposed to have died about 113 A.D.
Pliny's speeches are now lost, with the exception of one, a panegyric on
Trajan delivered in thanksgiving for the consulate. This, though diffuse
and somewhat too complimentary for modern taste, became a model for
this kind of composition. The others were mostly of two classes, forensic
and political, many of the latter being, like Cicero's speech against Verres,
impeachments of provincial governors for cruelty and extortion toward
their subjects. In these, as in his public activities in general, he appears
as a man of public spirit and integrity; and in his relations with his native
town he was a thoughtful and munificent benefactor.

The letters, on which to-day his fame mainly rests, were largely written
with a view to publication, and were arranged by Pliny himself. They
thus lack the spontaneity of Cicero's impulsive utterances, but to most
modern readers who are not special students of Roman history they are
even more interesting. They deal with a great variety of subjects: the
description of a Roman villa; the charms of country life; the reluctance of
people to attend author's readings and to listen when they were present;
a dinner party; legacy-hunting in ancient Rome; the acquisition of a
piece of statuary; his love for his young wife; ghost stories; floating
islands, a tame dolphin, and other marvels. But by far the best-known are
those describing the great eruption of Vesuvius in which his uncle per-

185

1 86 INTRODUCTORY NOTE

ished, a martyr to scientific curiosity, and the letter to Trajan on his
attempts to suppress Christianity in Bithynia, with Trajan's reply approv-
ing his policy. Taken altogether, these letters give an absorbingly vivid
picture of the days of the early empire, and of the interests of a culti-
vated Roman gentleman of wealth. Occasionally, as in the last letters
referred to, they deal with important historical events; but their chief
value is in bringing before us, in somewhat the same manner as "The
Spectator" pictures the England of the age of Anne, the life of a time
which is not so unlike our own as its distance in years might indicate. And
in this time by no means the least interesting figure is that of the letter-
writer himself, with his vanity and self-importance, his sensibility and
generous affection, his pedantry and his loyalty.

LETTERS

GAIUS PLINIUS CLECILIUS SECUNDUS

I
To SEPTITIUS

YOU have frequently pressed me to make a select collection
of my Letters (if there really be any deserving of a special
preference) and give them to the public. I have selected them
accordingly; not, indeed, in their proper order of time, for I was
not compiling a history; but just as each came to hand. And now I
have only to wish that you may have no reason to repent of your
advice, nor I of my compliance: in that case, I may probably enquire
after the rest, which at present lie neglected, and preserve those I
shall hereafter write. Farewell.

II

To ARRIANUS

I FORESEE your journey in my direction is likely to be delayed, and
therefore send you the speech which I promised in my former;
requesting you, as usual, to revise and correct it. I desire this the
more earnestly as I never, I think, wrote with the same empressement
in any of my former speeches; for I have endeavoured to imitate your
old favourite Demosthenes and Calvus, who is lately become mine,
at least in the rhetorical forms of the speech; for to catch their sublime
spirit, is given, alone, to the "inspired few." My subject, indeed,
seemed naturally to lend itself to this (may I venture to call it?)
emulation; consisting, as it did, almost entirely in a vehement style of
address, even to a degree sufficient to have awakened me (if only I
am capable of being awakened) out of that indolence in which I
have long reposed. I have not, however, altogether neglected the

187

1 88 PLINY

flowers of rhetoric of my favourite Marc-Tully, wherever I could
with propriety step out of my direct road, to enjoy a more flowery
path: for it was energy, not austerity, at which I aimed. I would not
have you imagine by this that I am bespeaking your indulgence: on
the contrary, to make your correcting pen more vigorous, I will
confess that neither my friends nor myself are averse from the publi-
cation of this piece, if only you should join in the approval of what
is perhaps my folly. The truth is, as I must publish something, I
wish it might be this performance rather than any other, because it is
already finished: (you hear the wish of laziness). At all events,
however, something I must publish, and for many reasons; chiefly
because the tracts which I have already sent into the world, though
they have long since lost all their recommendation from novelty, are
still, I am told, in request; if, after all, the booksellers are not tickling
my ears. And let them; since, by that innocent deceit, I am encour-
aged to pursue my studies. Farewell.

Ill

To VOCONIUS ROMANUS

DID you ever meet with a more abject and mean-spirited creature
than Marcus Regulus since the death of Domitian, during whose
reign his conduct was no less infamous, though more concealed,
than under Nero's? He began to be afraid I was angry with him,
and his apprehensions were perfectly correct; I was angry. He had
not only done his best to increase the peril of the position in which
Rusticus Arulenus 1 stood, but had exulted in his death; insomuch
that he actually recited and published a libel upon his memory, in
which he styles him "The Stoics' Ape": adding, "stigmated 2 with
the Vitellian scar." 3 You recognize Regulus' eloquent strain! He
fell with such fury upon the character of Herennius Senecio that
Metius Carus said to him, one day, "What business have you with

1 A pupil and intimate friend of Partus Thrasea, the distinguished Stoic philosopher.
Arulenus was put to death by Domitian for writing a panegyric upon Thrasea.

2 The impropriety of this expression, in the original, seems to lie in the word
stigmosttm, which Regulus probably either coined through affectation or used through
ignorance. It is a word, at least, which does not occur in any author of authority:
the translator has endeavoured, therefore, to preserve the same sort of impropriety,
by using an expression of like unwarranted stamp in his own tongue. M.

3 An allusion to a wound he had received in the war between Vitellius and
Vespasian.

LETTERS 189

my dead? Did I ever interfere in the affair of Crassus 4 or Came-
rinus''?" Victims, you know, to Regulus, in Nero's time. For these
reasons he imagined I was highly exasperated, and so at the recita-
tion of his last piece, I got no invitation. Besides, he had not
forgotten, it seems, with what deadly purpose he had once attacked
me in the Court of the Hundred. 6 Rusticus had desired me to act as
counsel for Arionilla, Timon's wife: Regulus was engaged against
me. In one part of the case I was strongly insisting upon a particular
judgment given by Metius Modestus, an excellent man, at that time
in banishment by Domitian's order. Now then for Regulus. "Pray,"
says he, "what is your opinion of Modestus?" You see what a risk
I should have run had I answered that I had a high opinion of him,
how I should have disgraced myself on the other hand if I had
replied that I had a bad opinion of him. But some guardian power,
I am persuaded, must have stood by me to assist me in this emerg-
ency. "I will tell you my opinion," I said, "if that is a matter to be
brought before the court." "I ask you," he repeated, "what is your
opinion of Modestus?" I replied that it was customary to examine
witnesses to the character of an accused man, not to the character of
one on whom sentence had already been passed. He pressed me a
third time. "I do not now enquire," said he, "your opinion of
Modestus in general, I only ask your opinion of his loyalty." "Since
you will have my opinion then," I rejoined, "I think it illegal even
to ask a question concerning a person who stands convicted." He
sat down at this, completely silenced; and I received applause and
congratulation on all sides, that without injuring my reputation by
an advantageous, perhaps, though ungenerous answer, I had not
entangled myself in the toils of so insidious a catch-question. Thor-
oughly frightened upon this then, he first seizes upon Czcilius Celer,
next he goes and begs of Fabius Justus, that they would use their
joint interest to bring about a reconciliation between us. And lest
this should not be sufficient, he sets of! to Spurinna as well; to whom
he came in the humblest way (for he is the most abject creature

4 A brother of Piso Galba's adopted son. He was put to death by Nero.

5 Sulpicius Camerinus, put to death by the same emperor, upon some frivolous
charge.

6 A select body of men who formed a court of judicature, called the centumviral
court. Their jurisdiction extended chiefly, if not entirely, to questions of wills and
intestate estates. Their number, it would seem, amounted to 105. M.

190 PLINY

alive, where he has anything to be afraid of) and says to him, "Do,
I entreat of you, call on Pliny to-morrow morning, certainly in the
morning, no later (for I cannot endure this anxiety of mind longer),
and endeavour by any means in your power to soften his resentment."
I was already up, the next day, when a message arrived from
Spurinna, "I am coming to call on you." I sent back word, "Nay, I
will wait upon you"; however, both of us setting out to pay this
visit, we met under Livia's portico. He acquainted me with the
commission he had received from Regulus, and interceded for him
as became so worthy a man in behalf of one so totally dissimilar,
without greatly pressing the thing. "I will leave it to you," was my
reply, "to consider what answer to return Regulus; you ought not to
be deceived by me. I am waiting for Mauricus' 7 return" (for he had
not yet come back out of exile), "so that I cannot give you any
definite answer either way, as I mean to be guided entirely by his
decision, for he ought to be my leader here, and I simply to do as he
says." Well, a few days after this, Regulus met me as I was at the
praetor's; he kept close to me there and begged a word in private,
when he said he was afraid I deeply resented an expression he had
once made use of in his reply to Satrius and myself, before the Court
of the Hundred, to this effect: "Satrius Rufus, who does not en-
deavour to rival Cicero, and who is content with the eloquence of
our own day." I answered, now I perceived indeed, upon his own
confession, that he had meant it ill-naturedly; otherwise it might
have passed for a compliment. "For I am free to own," I said, "that
I do endeavour to rival Cicero, and am not content with the elo-
quence of our own day. For I consider it the very height of folly not
to copy the best models of every kind. But how happens it that you,
who have so good a recollection of what passed upon this occasion,
should have forgotten that other, when you asked me my opinion
of the loyalty of Modestus?" Pale as he always is, he turned simply
pallid at this, and stammered out, "I did not intend to hurt you when
I asked this question, but Modestus." Observe the vindictive cruelty
of the fellow, who made no concealment of his willingness to injure
a banished man. But the reason he alleged in justification of his

7 Junius Mauricus, the brother of Rusticus Arulenus. Both brothers were sentenced
on the same day, Arulenus to execution and Mauricus to banishment.

LETTERS 191

conduct is pleasant. Modestus, he explained, in a letter of his, which
was read to Domitian, had used the following expression : "Regulus,
the biggest rascal that walks upon two feet": and what Modestus
had written was the simple truth, beyond all manner of controversy.
Here, about, our conversation came to an end, for I did not wish
to proceed further, being desirous to keep matters open until Mauri-
cus returns. It is no easy matter, I am well aware of that, to destroy
Regulus; he is rich, and at the head of a party; courted 8 by many,
feared by more: a passion that will sometimes prevail even beyond
friendship itself. But, after all, ties of this sort are not so strong but
they may be loosened; for a bad man's credit is as shifty as himself.
However (to repeat), I am waiting until Mauricus comes back. He
is a man of sound judgment and great sagacity, formed upon long
experience, and who, from his observations of the past, well knows
how to judge of the future. I shall talk the matter over with him,
and consider myself justified either in pursuing or dropping this
affair, as he shall advise. Meanwhile I thought I owed this account
to our mutual friendship, which gives you an undoubted right to
know about not only all my actions but all my plans as well. Fare-
well.

IV

To CORNELIUS TACITUS

You will laugh (and you are quite welcome) when I tell you that
your old acquaintance is turned sportsman, and has taken three noble
boars. "What!" you exclaim, "Pliny!" Even he. However, I in-
dulged at the same time my beloved inactivity; and, whilst I sat at
my nets, you would have found me, not with boar spear or javelin,
but pencil and tablet, by my side. I mused and wrote, being
determined to return, if with all my hands empty, at least with my
memorandums full. Believe me, this way of studying is not to be
despised: it is wonderful how the mind is stirred and quickened into

8 There seems to have been a cast of uncommon blackness in the character of this
Regulus; otherwise the benevolent Pliny would scarcely have singled him out, as he
has in this and some following letters, for the subject of his warmest contempt and
indignation. Yet, infamous as he was, he had his flatterers and admirers; and a
contemporary poet frequently represents him as one of the most finished characters
of the age, both in eloquence and virtue. M.

192 PLINY

activity by brisk bodily exercise. There is something, too, in the
solemnity of the venerable woods with which one is surrounded,
together with that profound silence which is observed on these occa-
sions, that forcibly disposes the mind to meditation. So for the
future, let me advise you, whenever you hunt, to take your tablets
along with you, as well as your basket and bottle, for be assured
you will find Minerva no less fond of traversing the hills than
Diana. Farewell.

V

To POMPEIUS SATURNINUS

NOTHING could be more seasonable than the letter which I received
from you, in which you so earnestly beg me to send you some of my
literary efforts: the very thing I was intending to do. So you have
only put spurs into a willing horse and at once saved yourself the
excuse of refusing the trouble, and me the awkwardness of asking
the favour. Without hesitation then I avail myself of your offer; as
you must now take the consequence of it without reluctance. But
you are not to expect anything new from a lazy fellow, for I am
going to ask you to revise again the speech I made to my fellow-
townsmen when I dedicated the public library to their use. You
have already, I remember, obliged me with some annotations upon
this piece, but only in a general way; and so I now beg of you not
only to take a general view of the whole speech, but, as you usually
do, to go over it in detail. When you have corrected it, I shall still be
at liberty to publish or suppress it: and the delay in the meantime
will be attended with one of these alternatives; for, while we are de-
liberating whether it is fit for publishing, a frequent revision will
either make it so, or convince me that it is not. Though indeed my
principal difficulty respecting the publication of this harangue arises
not so much from the composition as out of the subject itself, which
has something in it, I am afraid, that will look too like ostentation
and self-conceit. For, be the style ever so plain and unassuming, yet,
as the occasion necessarily led me to speak not only of the munificence
of my ancestors, but of my own as well, my modesty will be seriously
embarrassed. A dangerous and slippery situation this, even when one
is led into it by plea of necessity! For, if mankind are not very

LETTERS 193

favourable to panegyric, even when bestowed upon others, how much
more difficult is it to reconcile them to it when it is a tribute which
we pay to ourselves or to our ancestors! Virtue, by herself, is gen-
erally the object of envy, but particularly so when glory and distinc-
tion attend her; and the world is never so little disposed to detract
from the rectitude of your conduct as when it passes unobserved
and unapplauded. For these reasons, I frequently ask myself whether
I composed this harangue, such as it is, merely from a personal
consideration, or with a view to the public as well; and I am sensible
that what may be exceedingly useful and proper in the prosecution
of any affair may lose all its grace and fitness the moment the busi-
ness is completed : for instance, in the case before us, what could be
more to my purpose than to explain at large the motives of my
intended bounty? For, first, it engaged my mind in good and
ennobling thoughts; next, it enabled me, by frequent dwelling
upon them, to receive a perfect impression of their loveliness, while
it guarded at the same time against that repentance which is sure to
follow on an impulsive act of generosity. There arose also a further
advantage from this method, as it fixed in me a certain habitual
contempt of money. For, while mankind seem to be universally
governed by an innate passion to accumulate wealth, the cultivation
of a more generous affection in my own breast taught me to emanci-
pate myself from the slavery of so predominant a principle: and I
thought that my honest intentions would be the more meritorious
as they should appear to proceed, not from sudden impulse, but
from the dictates of cool and deliberate reflection. I considered, be-
sides, that I was not engaging myself to exhibit public games or
gladiatorial combats, but to establish an annual fund for the support
and education of young men of good families but scanty means. The
pleasures of the senses are so far from wanting the oratorical arts to
recommend them that we stand in need of all the powers of elo-
quence to moderate and restrain rather than stir up their influence.
But the work of getting anybody to cheerfully undertake the monot-
ony and drudgery of education must be effected not by pay merely,
but by a skilfully worked-up appeal to the emotions as well. If
physicians find it expedient to use the most insinuating address in
recommending to their patients a wholesome though, perhaps, un-

194 FLINT

pleasant regimen, how much more occasion had he to exert all the
powers of persuasion who, out of regard to the public welfare, was
endeavouring to reconcile it to a most useful though not equally
popular benefaction! Particularly, as my aim was to recommend an
institution, calculated solely for the benefit of those who were parents
to men who, at present, had no children; and to persuade the greater
number to wait patiently until they should be entitled to an honour
of which a jew only could immediately partake. But as at that time,
when I attempted to explain and enforce the general design and
benefit of my institution, I considered more the general good of my
countrymen, than any reputation which might result to myself; so
I am apprehensive lest, if I publish that piece, it may perhaps look as
if I had a view rather to my own personal credit than the benefit of
others. Besides, I am very sensible how much nobler it is to place
the reward of virtue in the silent approbation of one's own breast
than in the applause of the world. Glory ought to be the conse-
quence, not the motive, of our actions; and although it happen not
to attend the worthy deed, yet it is by no means the less fair for
having missed the applause it deserved, But the world is apt to
suspect that those who celebrate their own beneficent acts performed
them for no other motive than to have the pleasure of extolling them.
Thus, the splendour of an action which would have been deemed
illustrious if related by another is totally extinguished when it be-
comes the subject of one's own applause. Such is the disposition of
mankind, if they cannot blast the action, they will censure its display;
and whether you do what does not deserve particular notice, or set
forth yourself what does, either way you incur reproach. In my own
case there is a peculiar circumstance that weighs much with me: this
speech was delivered not before the people, but the Decurii; 1 not in
the forum, but the senate; I am afraid therefore it will look incon-
sistent that I, who, when I delivered it, seemed to avoid popular
applause, should now, by publishing this performance, appear to
court it: that I, who was so scrupulous as not to admit even those
persons to be present when I delivered this speech, who were inter-
ested in my benefaction, lest it might be suspected I was actuated
in this affair by any ambitious views, should now seem to solicit
1 The Decurii were a sort of senators in the municipal or corporate cities of Italy. M.

LETTERS 195

admiration, by forwardly displaying it to such as have no other
concern in my munificence than the benefit of example. These are
the scruples which have occasioned my delay in giving this piece to
the public; but I submit them entirely to your judgment, which I
shall ever esteem as a sufficient sanction of my conduct. Farewell.

VI

To ATTIUS CLEMENS

IF ever polite literature flourished at Rome, it certainly flourishes
now; and I could give you many eminent instances: I will content
myself, however, with naming only Euphrates, 1 the philosopher. I
first became acquainted with this excellent person in my youth, when
I served in the army in Syria. I had an opportunity of conversing
with him familiarly, and took some pains to gain his affection:
though that, indeed, was not very difficult, for he is easy of access,
unreserved, and actuated by those social principles he professes to
teach. I should think myself extremely happy if I had as fully
answered the expectations he, at that time, conceived of me, as he
exceeds everything I had imagined of him. But, perhaps, I admire
his excellencies more now than I did then, because I know better
how to appreciate them; not that I sufficiently appreciate them even
now. For as none but those who are skilled in painting, statuary, or
the plastic art, can form a right judgment of any performance in
those respective modes of representation, so a man must, himself,
have made great advances in philosophy before he is capable of
forming a just opinion of a philosopher. However, as far as I am
qualified to determine, Euphrates is possessed of so many shining
talents that he cannot fail to attract and impress the most ordinarily
educated observer. He reasons with much force, acuteness, and
elegance; and frequently rises into all the sublime and luxuriant
eloquence of Plato. His style is varied and flowing, and at the same
time so wonderfully captivating that he forces the reluctant attention
of the most unwilling hearer. For the rest, a fine stature, a comely

1 "Euphrates was a native of Tyre, or, according to others, of Byzantium. He be-
longed to the Stoic school of philosophy. In his old age he became tired of life, and
asked and obtained from Hadrian permission to put an end to himself by poison."
Smith's Diet, of Greek and Roman Biog.

196 PLINY

aspect, long hair, and a large silver beard: circumstances which,
though they may probably be thought trifling and accidental, con-
tribute, however, to gain him much reverence. There is no affected
negligence in his dress and appearance; his countenance is grave but
not austere; and his approach commands respect without creating
awe. Distinguished as he is by the perfect blamelessness of his life,
he is no less so by the courtesy and engaging sweetness of his manner.
He attacks vices, not persons, and, without severity, reclaims the
wanderer from the paths of virtue. You follow his exhortations with
rapt attention, hanging, as it were, upon his lips; and even after the
heart is convinced, the ear still wishes to listen to the harmonious
reasoner. His family consists of three children (two of which are
sons), whom he educates with the utmost care. His father-in-law,
Pompeius Julianus, as he greatly distinguished himself in every
other part of his life, so particularly in this, that though he was
himself of the highest rank in his province, yet, among many con-
siderable matches, he preferred Euphrates for his son-in-law, as
first in merit, though not in dignity. But why do I dwell any longer
upon the virtues of a man whose conversation I am so unfortunate
as not to have time sufficiently to enjoy? Is it to increase my regret
and vexation that I cannot enjoy it? My time is wholly taken up in
the execution of a very honourable, indeed, but equally troublesome,
employment; in hearing cases, signing petitions, making up accounts,
and writing a vast amount of the most illiterate literature. I some-
times complain to Euphrates (for I have leisure at least to complain)
of these unpleasing occupations. He endeavours to console me, by
affirming that, to be engaged in the public service, to hear and
determine cases, to explain the laws, and administer justice, is a part,
and the noblest part, too, of philosophy; as it is reducing to practice
what her professors teach in speculation. But even his rhetoric will
never be able to convince me that it is better to be at this sort of work
than to spend whole days in attending his lectures and learning his
precepts. I cannot therefore but strongly recommend it to you, who
have the time for it, when next you come to town (and you will
come, I daresay, so much the sooner for this), to take the benefit of
his elegant and refined instructions. For I do not (as many do)
envy others the happiness I cannot share with them myself: on the

LETTERS 197

contrary, it is a very sensible pleasure to me when I find my friends
in possession of an enjoyment from which I have the misfortune to
be excluded. Farewell.

VII

To FABIUS JUSTUS

IT is a long time since I have had a letter from you. "There is
nothing to write about," you say: well, then, write and let me know
just this, that "there is nothing to write about," or tell me in the good
old style, // you are well, that's right, I am quite well. This will do
for me, for it implies everything. You think I am joking? Let mfc
assure you I am in sober earnest. Do let me know how you are;
for I cannot remain ignorant any longer without growing exceed-
ingly anxious about you. Farewell.

VIII
To CALESTRIUS TIRO

I HAVE suffered the heaviest loss; if that word be sufficiently strong
to express the misfortune which has deprived me of so excellent
a man. Corellius Rufus is dead; and dead, too, by his own act! A
circumstance of great aggravation to my affliction: as that sort of
death which we cannot impute either to the course of nature, or the
hand of Providence, is, of all others, the most to be lamented. It
affords some consolation in the loss of those friends whom disease
snatches from us that they fall by the general destiny of mankind;
but those who destroy themselves leave us under the inconsolable
reflection, that they had it in their power to have lived longer. It is
true, Corellius had many inducements to be fond of life; a blameless
conscience, high reputation, and great dignity of character, besides
a daughter, a wife, a grandson, and sisters, and, amidst these
numerous pledges of happiness, faithful friends. Still, it must be
owned he had the highest motive (which to a wise man will always
have the force of destiny) urging him to this resolution. He had
long been tortured by so tedious and painful a complaint that even
these inducements to living on, considerable as they are, were over-

198 PLIN1

balanced by the reasons on the other side. In his thirty-third year
(as I have frequently heard him say) he was seized with the gout in
his feet. This was hereditary; for diseases, as well as possessions, are
sometimes handed down by a sort of inheritance. A life of sobriety
and continence had enabled him to conquer and keep down the
disease while he was still young; latterly, as it grew upon him with
advancing years, he had to manfully bear it, suffering meanwhile the
most incredible and undeserved agonies; for the gout was now not
only in his feet, but had spread itself over his whole body. I
remember, in Domitian's reign, paying him a visit at his villa, near
Rome. As soon as I entered his chamber, his servants went out: for
it was his rule never to allow them to be in the room when any
intimate friend was with him; nay, even his own wife, though she
could have kept any secret, used to go too. Casting his eyes round the
room, "Why," he exclaimed, "do you suppose I endure life so long
under these cruel agonies ? It is with the hope that I may outlive, at
least for one day, that villain." Had his bodily strength been equal
to his resolution, he would have carried his desire into practical effect.
God heard and answered his prayer; and when he felt that he should
now die a free, unenslaved Roman, he broke through those other
great, but now less forcible, attachments to the world. His malady
increased; and, as it now grew too violent to admit of any relief
from temperance, he resolutely determined to put an end to its unin-
terrupted attacks, by an effort of heroism. He had refused all
sustenance during four days, when his wife, Hispulla, sent our
common friend Geminius to me, with the melancholy news that
Corellius was resolved to die; and that neither her own entreaties
nor her daughter's could move him from his purpose; I was the
only person left who could reconcile him to life. I ran to his house
with the utmost precipitation. As I approached it, I met a second
messenger from Hispulla, Julius Atticus, who informed me there
was nothing to be hoped for now, even from me, as he seemed more
hardened than ever in his purpose. He had said, indeed, to his
physician, who pressed him to take some nourishment, " 'Tis
resolved": an expression which, as it raised my admiration of the
greatness of his soul, so it does my grief for the loss of him. I keep
thinking what a friend, what a man, I am deprived of. That he had

LETTERS 199

reached his sixty-seventh year, an age which even the strongest
seldom exceed, I well know; that he is released from a life of con-
tinual pain; that he has left his dearest friends behind him, and (what
was dearer to him than all these) the state in a prosperous condition :
all this I know. Still I cannot forbear to lament him, as if he had
been in the prime and vigour of his days; and I lament him (shall
I own my weakness?) on my own account. And to confess to you
as I did to Calvisius, in the first transport of my grief I sadly fear,
now that I am no longer under his eye, I shall not keep so strict a
guard over my conduct. Speak comfort to me then, not that he was
old, he was infirm: all this I know; but by supplying me with some
reflections that are new and resistless, which I have never heard,
never read, anywhere else. For all that I have heard, and all that
I have read, occur to me of themselves; but all these are by far too
weak to support me under so severe an affliction. Farewell.

IX

To Socius SENECIO

THIS year has produced a plentiful crop of poets: during the whole
month of April scarcely a day has passed on which we have not been
entertained with the recital of some poem. It is a pleasure to me to
find that a taste for polite literature still exists, and that men of
genius do come forward and make themselves known, notwithstand-
ing the lazy attendance they get for their pains. The greater part of
the audience sit in the lounging-places, gossip away their time there,
and are perpetually sending to enquire whether the author has made
his entrance yet, whether he has got through the preface, or whether
he has almost finished the piece. Then at length they saunter in with
an air of the greatest indifference, nor do they condescend to stay
through the recital, but go out before it is over, some slyly and
stealthily, others again with perfect freedom and unconcern. And
yet our fathers can remember how Claudius Caesar, walking one day
in the palace, and hearing a great shouting, enquired the cause; and
being informed that Nonianus l was reciting a composition of his,
went immediately to the place, and agreeably surprised the author

*A pleader and historian of some distinction, mentioned by Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 19,
and by Quintilian, x. i, 102.

20O PLINY

with his presence. But now, were one to bespeak the attendance of
the idlest man living, and remind him of the appointment ever so
often, or ever so long beforehand ; either he would not come at all, or
if he did would grumble about having "lost a day!" for no other
reason but because he had not lost it. So much the more do those
authors deserve our encouragement and applause who have resolu-
tion to persevere in their studies, and to read out their compositions
in spite of this apathy or arrogance on the part of their audience.
Myself indeed, I scarcely ever miss being present upon any occasion;
though, to tell the truth, the authors have generally been friends of
mine, as indeed there are few men of literary tastes who are not.
It is this which has kept me in town longer than I had intended. I
am now, however, at liberty to go back into the country, and write
something myself; which I do not intend reciting, lest I should seem
rather to have lent than given my attendance to these recitations of
my friends, for in these, as in all other good offices, the obligatior
ceases the moment you seem to expect a return. Farewell.

X

To JUNIUS MAURICUS

You desire me to look out a proper husband for your niece: it is
with justice you enjoin me that office. You know the high esteem
and affection I bore that great man, her father, and with what noble
instructions he nurtured my youth, and taught me to deserve those
praises he was pleased to bestow upon me. You could not give me,
then, a more important, or more agreeable, commission; nor could
I be employed in an office of higher honour, than that of choosing
a young man worthy of being father of the grandchildren of Rusticus
Arulenus; a choice I should be long in determining, were I not
acquainted with Minutius ^Emilianus, who seems formed for our
purpose. He loves me with all that warmth of affection which is
usual between young men of equal years (as indeed I have the
advance of him but by a very few), and reveres me at the same time,
with all the deference due to age; and, in a word, he is no less de-
sirous to model himself by my instructions than I was by those of
yourself and your brother.

LETTERS 2O I

He is a native of Brixia, one of those provinces in Italy which still
retain much of the old modesty, frugal simplicity, and even rusticity,
of manner. He is the son of Minutius Macrinus, whose humble
desires were satisfied with standing at the head of the equestrian
order: for though he was nominated by Vespasian in the number of
those whom that prince dignified with the prastorian office, yet, with
an inflexible greatness of mind, he resolutely preferred an honourable
repose to the ambitious, shall I call them, or exalted, pursuits, in
which we public men are engaged. His grandmother, on the
mother's side, is Serrana Procula, of Patavium : J you are no stranger
to the character of its citizens; yet Serrana is looked upon, even
among these correct people, as an exemplary instance of strict
virtue. Acilius, his uncle, is a man of almost exceptional gravity,
wisdom, and integrity. In short, you will find nothing throughout
his family unworthy of yours. Minutius himself has plenty of
vivacity, as well as application, together with a most amiable and
becoming modesty. He has already, with considerable credit, passed
through the offices of quaestor, tribune, and praetor; so that you will
be spared the trouble of soliciting for him those honourable employ-
ments. He has a fine, well-bred countenance, with a ruddy, healthy
complexion, while his whole person is elegant and comely and his
mien graceful and senatorian: advantages, I think, by no means to
be slighted, and which I consider as the proper tribute to virgin
innocence. I think I may add that his father is very rich. When I
contemplate the character of those who require a husband of my
choosing, I know it is unnecessary to mention wealth; but when I
reflect upon the prevailing manners of the age, and even the laws of
Rome, which rank a man according to his possessions, it certainly
claims some regard; and, indeed, in establishments of this nature,
where children and many other circumstances are to be duly weighed,
it is an article that well deserves to be taken into the account. You
will be inclined, perhaps, to suspect that affection has had too great a
share in the character I have been drawing, and that I have height-
ened it beyond the truth; but I will stake all my credit, you will find
everything far beyond what I have represented. I love the young
fellow indeed (as he justly deserves) with all the warmth of a most

1 Padua.

202 PLINY

ardent affection; but for that very reason I would not ascribe more
to his merit than I know it will bear. Farewell.

XI
To SEPTITIUS CLARUS

AH! you are a pretty fellow! You make an engagement to come
to supper and then never appear. Justice shall be exacted; you shall
reimburse me to the very last penny the expense I went to on your
account; no small sum, let me tell you. I had prepared, you must
know, a lettuce apiece, three snails, two eggs, and a barley cake, with
some sweet wine and snow (the snow most certainly I shall charge
to your account, as a rarity that will not keep). Olives, beet-root,
gourds, onions, and a thousand other dainties equally sumptuous.
You should likewise have been entertained either with an interlude,
the rehearsal of a poem, or a piece of music, whichever you preferred;
or (such was my liberality) with all three. But the oysters, sows'-

bellies, sea-urchins, and dancers from Cadiz of a certain 1 know

not who, were, it seems, more to your taste. You shall give satisfac-
tion; how, shall at present be a secret.

Oh! you have behaved cruelly, grudging your friend, I had
almost said yourself; and upon second thoughts I do say so; in
this way: for how agreeably should we have spent the evening, in
laughing, trifling, and literary amusements! You may sup, I confess,
at many places more splendidly; but nowhere with more uncon-
strained mirth, simplicity, and freedom: only make the experiment,
and if you do not ever after excuse yourself to your other friends, to
come to me, always put me off to go to them. Farewell.

XII

To SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS

You tell me in your letter that you are extremely alarmed by a
dream; apprehending that it forebodes some ill success to you in the
case you have undertaken to defend; and, therefore, desire that I

LETTERS 203

would get it adjourned for a few days, or, at least, to the next. This
will be no easy matter, but I will try:

"... For dreams descend from Jove."

Meanwhile, it is very material for you to recollect whether your
dreams generally represent things as they afterwards fall out, or
quite the reverse. But if I may judge of yours by one that happened
to myself, this dream that alarms you seems to portend that you will
acquit yourself with great success. I had promised to stand counsel
for Junius Pastor; when I fancied in my sleep that my mother-in-
law came to me, and, throwing herself at my feet, earnestly entreated
me not to plead. I was at that time a very young man; the case was
to be argued in the four centum viral courts; my adversaries were
some of the most important personages in Rome, and particular
favourites of Caesar; 1 any of which circumstances were sufficient,
after such an inauspicious dream, to have discouraged me. Notwith-
standing this, I engaged in the cause, reflecting that,

"Without a sign, his sword the brave man draws,
And asks no omen but his country's cause"; 2

for I looked upon the promise I had given to be as sacred to me as
my country, or, if that were possible, more so. The event happened
as I wished; and it was that very case which first procured me the
favourable attention of the public, and threw open to me the gates of
Fame. Consider then whether your dream, like this one I have
related, may not presignify success. But, after all, perhaps you will
think it safer to pursue this cautious maxim: "Never do a thing con-
cerning the rectitude of which you are in doubt"; if so, write me
word. In the interval, I will consider of some excuse, and will so
plead your cause that you may be able to plead it yourself any day
you like best. In this respect, you are in a better situation than I
was: the court of the centumviri, where I was to plead, admits of no
adjournment: whereas, in that where your case is to be heard, though
no easy matter to procure one, still, however, it is possible. Farewell.

2 Iliad, xii. 243. Pope.

204 PLINY

XIII
To ROMANUS FlRMUS

As you are my townsman, my schoolfellow, and the earliest com-
panion of my youth; as there was the strictest friendship between
my mother and uncle and your father (a happiness which I also
enjoyed as far as the great inequality of our ages would admit) ; can
I fail (thus biassed as I am by so many and weighty considerations)
to contribute all in my power to the advancement of your honours?
The rank you bear in our province, as decurio, is a proof that you are
possessed, at least, of an hundred thousand sesterces; 1 but that we
may also have the satisfaction of seeing you a Roman knight, 2 I
present you with three hundred thousand, in order to make up the
sum requisite to entitle you to that dignity. The long acquaintance
we have had leaves me no room to apprehend you will ever be
forgetful of this instance of my friendship. And I know your disposi-
tion too well to think it necessary to advise you to enjoy this honour
with the modesty that becomes a person who receives it from me;
for the advanced rank we possess through a friend's kindness is a
sort of sacred trust, in which we have his judgment, as well as our
own character, to maintain, and therefore to be guarded with the
greater caution. Farewell.

XIV
To CORNELIUS TACITUS

I HAVE frequent debates with a certain acquaintance of mine, a
man of skill and learning, who admires nothing so much in the elo-
quence of the bar as conciseness. I agree with him, that where the
case will admit of this precision, it may with propriety be adopted;

1 Equal to about $4,000 of our money.

2 "The equestrian dignity, or that order of the Roman people which we commonly
call Anights, had nothing in it analogous to any order of modern knighthood, but
depended entirely upon a valuation of their estates; and every citizen whose entire
fortune amounted to 400,000 sesterces, that is, to about $16,000 of our money, was
enrolled, of course, in the list of knights, who were considered as a middle order
between the senators and common people, yet, without any other distinction than the
privilege of wearing a gold ring, which was the peculiar badge of their order." Life
of Cicero, vol. i., iii. in note. A/.

LETTERS 205

but insist that, to leave out what is material to be mentioned, or only
briefly and cursorily to touch upon those points which should be
inculcated, impressed, and urged well home upon the minds of the
audience, is a downright fraud upon one's client. In many cases,
to deal with the subject at greater length adds strength and weight
to our ideas, which frequently produce their impression upon the
mind, as iron does upon solid bodies, rather by repeated strokes than
a single blow. In answer to this, he usually has recourse to authori-
ties, and produces Lysias 1 amongst the Grecians, together with Cato
and the two Gracchi among our own countrymen, many of whose
speeches certainly are brief and curtailed. In return, I name Demos-
thenes, ./Eschines, Hyperides, 2 and many others, in opposition to
Lysias; while I confront Cato and the Gracchi with Caesar, Pollio, 3
Cselius, 4 but, above all, Cicero, whose longest speech is generally
considered his best. Why, no doubt about it, in good compositions,
as in everything else that is valuable, the more there is of them, the
better. You may observe in statues, basso-relievos, pictures, and the
human form, and even in animals and trees, that nothing is more
graceful than magnitude, if accompanied with proportion. The
same holds true in pleading; and even in books a large volume
carries a certain beauty and authority in its very size. My antagonist,
who is extremely dexterous at evading an argument, eludes all this,
and much more, which I usually urge to the same purpose, by insist-
ing that those very individuals, upon whose works I found my
opinion, made considerable additions to their speeches when they
published them. This I deny; and appeal to the harangues of num-
berless orators, particularly to those of Cicero, for Murena and
Varenus, in which a short, bare notification of certain charges is
expressed under mere heads. Whence it appears that many things
which he enlarged upon at the time he delivered those speeches
were retrenched when he gave them to the public. The same excel-
lent orator informs us that, agreeably to the ancient custom, which

1 An elegant Attic orator, remarkable for the grace and lucidity of his style, also
for his vivid and accurate delineations of character.

2 A graceful and powerful orator, and friend of Demosthenes.

3 A Roman orator of the Augustan age. He was a poet and historian as well,
but gained most distinction as an orator.

4 A man of considerable taste, talent, and eloquence, but profligate and extravagant.
He was on terms of some intimacy with Cicero.

206 PLINY

allowed only of one counsel on a side, Cluentius had no other advo-
cate than himself; and he tells us further that he employed four
whole days in defence of Cornelius; by which it plainly appears that
those speeches which, when delivered at their full length, had
necessarily taken up so much time at the bar were considerably cut
down and pruned when he afterwards compressed them into a single
volume, though, I must confess, indeed, a large one. But good plead-
ing, it is objected, is one thing, just composition another. This
objection, I am aware, has had some favourers; nevertheless, I am
persuaded (though I may, perhaps, be mistaken) that, as it is
possible you may have a good pleading which is not a good speech,
so a good speech cannot be a bad pleading; for the speech on paper is
the model and, as it were, the archetype of the speech that was
delivered. It is for this reason we find, in many of the best speeches
extant, numberless extemporaneous turns of expression; and even in
those which we are sure were never spoken; as, for instance, in the
following passage from the speech against Vesrres: "A certain
mechanic what's his name? Oh, thank you for helping me to it:
yes, I mean Polyclitus." It follows, then, that the nearer approach a
speaker makes to the rules of just composition, the more perfect will
he be in his art; always supposing, however, that he has his due share
of time allowed him; for, if he be limited of that article, no blame
can justly be fixed upon the advocate, though much certainly upon
the judge. The sense of the laws, I am sure, is on my side, which are
by no means sparing of the orator's time; it is not conciseness, but
fulness, a complete representation of every material circumstance,
which they recommend. Now conciseness cannot effect this, unless
in the most insignificant cases. Let me add what experience, that
unerring guide, has taught me: it has frequently been my province to
act both as an advocate and a judge; and I have often also attended
as an assessor. 5 Upon those occasions, I have ever found the judg-
ments of mankind are to be influenced by different modes of applica-
tion, and that the slightest circumstances frequently produce the
most important consequences. The dispositions and understandings
of men vary to such an extent that they seldom agree in their

5 The praetor was assisted by ten assessors, five of whom were senators, and the rest
knights. With these he was obliged to consult before he pronounced sentence. M.

LETTERS 2O7

opinions concerning any one point in debate before them; or, if
they do, it is generally from different motives. Besides, as every man
is naturally partial to his own discoveries, when he hears an argument
urged which had previously occurred to himself, he will be sure to
embrace it as extremely convincing. The orator, therefore, should
so adapt himself to his audience as to throw out something which
every one of them, in turn, may receive and approve as agreeable to
his own particular views. I recollect, once when Regulus and
I were engaged on the same side, his remarking to me, "You seem
to think it necessary to go into every single circumstance: whereas
I always take aim at once at my adversary's throat, and there I
press him closely." ('Tis true, he keeps a tight hold of whatever
part he has once fixed upon; but the misfortune is, he is extremely
apt to fix upon the wrong place.) I replied, it might possibly happen
that what he called the throat was, in reality, the fyiee or the anfyle.
As for myself, said I, who do not pretend to direct my aim with
so much precision, I test every part, I probe every opening; in short,
to use a vulgar proverb, / leave no stone unturned. And as, in
agriculture, it is not my vineyards or my woods only, but my fields
as well, that I look after and cultivate, and (to carry on the metaphor)
as I do not content myself with sowing those fields simply with
corn or white wheat, but sprinkle in barley, pulse, and the other
kinds of grain; so, in my pleadings at the bar, I scatter broadcast
various arguments like so many kinds of seed, in order to reap
whatever may happen to come up. For the disposition of your
judges is as hard to fathom as uncertain, and as little to be relied
on as that of soils and seasons. The comic writer Eupolis, 6 I
remember, mentions it in praise of that excellent orator, Pericles, that

"On his lips Persuasion hung,
And powerful Reason rul'd his tongue:
Thus he alone could boast the art
To charm at once, and pierce the heart."

But could Pericles, without the richest variety of expression, and
merely by the force of the concise or the rapid style, or both (for
they are very different), have thus charmed and pierced the heart?

6 A contemporary and rival of Aristophanes.

208 PLINY

To delight and to persuade require time and great command of
language; and to leave a sting in the minds of the audience is an
effect not to be expected from an orator who merely pinf^s, but
from him, and him only, who thrusts in. Another comic poet, 7
speaking of the same orator, says,

"His mighty words like Jove's own thunder roll;
Greece hears, and trembles to her inmost soul."

But it is not the close and reserved; it is the copious, the majestic,
and the sublime orator, who thunders, who lightens, who, in short,
bears all before him in a confused whirl. There is, undeniably, a
just mean in everything; but he equally misses the mark who falls
short of it, as he who goes beyond it; he who is too limited, as he
who is too unrestrained. Hence it is as common a thing to hear
our orators condemned for being too jejune and feeble as too
excessive and redundant. One is said to have exceeded the bounds
of his subject, the other not to have reached them. Both, no doubt,
are equally in fault, with this difference, however, that in the one
the fault arises from an abundance, in the other, from a deficiency;
an error, in the former case, which, if it be not the sign of a more
correct, is certainly of a more fertile genius. When I say this, I
would not be understood to approve that everlasting talker 8 men-
tioned in Homer, but that other 9 described in the following lines:

"Frequent and soft, as falls the winter snow,
Thus from his lips the copious periods flow."

Not but that I extremely admire him, 10 too, of whom the poet says,
"Few were his words, but wonderfully strong."

Yet, if the choice were given me, I should give the preference to
that style resembling winter snow, that is, to the full, uninterrupted,
and diffusive; in short, to that pomp of eloquence which seems all
heavenly and divine. But (it is replied) the harangue of a more
moderate length is most generally admired. It is: but only by
indolent people; and to fix the standard by their laziness and false

7 Aristophanes, Ach. 531.

8 Thersites. Iliad, ii. v. 212. 9 Ulysses. Iliad, iii. v. 222.

10 Menelaus. Iliad, iii. v. 214.

LETTERS 2O9

delicacy would be simply ridiculous. Were you to consult persons
of this cast, they would tell you, not only that it is best to say little,
but that it is best to say nothing at all. Thus, my friend, I have laid
before you my opinions upon this subject, and I am willing to
change them if not agreeable to yours. But should you disagree
with me, pray let me know clearly your reasons why. For, though
I ought to yield in this case to your more enlightened judgment,
yet, in a point of such consequence, I had rather be convinced by
argument than by authority. So if I don't seem to you very wide
of the mark, a line or two from you in return, intimating your
concurrence, will be sufficient to confirm me in my opinion: on the
other hand, if you should think me mistaken, let me have your
objections at full length. Does it not look rather like bribery, my
requiring only a short letter if you agree with me; but a very long
one if you should be of a different opinion ? Farewell.

XV

To PATERNUS

As I rely very much upon the soundness of your judgment, so
I do upon the goodness of your eyes: not because I think your dis-
cernment very great (for I don't want to make you conceited), but
because I think it as good as mine: which, it must be confessed, is
saying a great deal. Joking apart, I like the look of the slaves which
were purchased for me on your recommendation very well; all
I further care about is, that they be honest: and for this I must
depend upon their characters more than their countenances. Farewell.

XVI
To CATILIUS SEVERus 1

I AM at present (and have been a considerable time) detained in
Rome, under the most stunning apprehensions, Titus Aristo, 2 whom
I have a singular admiration and affection for, is fallen into a long
and obstinate illness, which troubles me. Virtue, knowledge, and

1 Great-prandfather of the Emperor M. Aurelius.
2 An eminent lawyer of Trajan's reijjn.

2IO PLINY

good sense shine out with so superior a lustre in this excellent man
that learning herself, and every valuable endowment, seem involved
in the danger of his single person. How consummate his knowledge,
both in the political and civil laws of his country! How thoroughly
conversant is he in every branch of history or antiquity! In a word,
there is nothing you might wish to know which he could not teach
you. As for me, whenever I would acquaint myself with any abstruse
point, I go to him as my storehouse. What an engaging sincerity,
what dignity in his conversation! how chastened and becoming is
his caution! Though he conceives, at once, every point in debate,
yet he is as slow to decide as he is quick to apprehend; calmly and
deliberately sifting and weighing every opposite reason that is
offered, and tracing it, with a most judicious penetration, from its
source through all its remotest consequences. His diet is frugal, his
dress plain; and whenever I enter his chamber, and view him re-
clined upon his couch, I consider the scene before me as a true
image of ancient simplicity, to which his illustrious mind reflects
the noblest ornament. He places no part of his happiness in ostenta-
tion, but in the secret approbation of his conscience, seeking the
reward of his virtue, not in the clamorous applauses of the world,
but in the silent satisfaction which results from having acted well.
In short, you will not easily find his equal, even among our phil-
osophers by outward profession. No, he does not frequent the
gymnasia or porticoes, 3 nor does he amuse his own and others'
leisure with endless controversies, but busies himself in the scenes
of civil and active life. Many has he assisted with his interest, still
more with his advice, and withal in the practice of temperance,
piety, justice, and fortitude, he has no superior. You would be
astonished, were you there to see, at the patience with which he
bears his illness, how he holds out against pain, endures thirst,
and quietly submits to this raging fever and to the pressure of
those clothes which are laid upon him to promote perspiration. He
lately called me and a few more of his particular friends to his
bedside, requesting us to ask his physicians what turn they appre-

3 The philosophers used to hold their disputations in the gymnasia and porticoes,
being places of the most public resort for walking, &c. M.

LETTERS 211

hended his distemper would take; that, if they pronounced it
incurable, he might voluntarily put an end to his life; but if there
were hopes of a recovery, how tedious and difficult soever it might
prove, he would calmly wait the event; for so much, he thought,
was due to the tears and entreaties of his wife and daughter, and
to the affectionate intercession of his friends, as not voluntarily to
abandon our hopes, if they were not entirely desperate. A true
hero's resolution this, in my estimation, and worthy the highest
applause. Instances are frequent in the world, of rushing into the
arms of death without reflection and by a sort of blind impulse;
but deliberately to weigh the reasons for life or death, and to be
determined in our choice as either side of the scale prevails, shows
a great mind. We have had the satisfaction to receive the opinion
of his physicians in his favour: may heaven favour their promises
and relieve me at length from this painful anxiety. Once easy in
my mind, I shall go back to my favourite Laurentum, or, in other
words, to my books, my papers and studious leisure. Just now, so
much of my time and thoughts are taken up in attendance upon
my friend, and anxiety for him, that I have neither leisure nor
inclination for any reading or writing whatever. Thus you have
my fears, my wishes, and my after-plans. Write me in return, but
in a gayer strain, an account not only of what you are and have
been doing, but of what you intend doing too. It will be a very
sensible consolation to me in this disturbance of mind, to be
assured that yours is easy. Farewell.

XVII

To VOCONIUS ROMANUS

ROME has not for many years beheld a more magnificent and
memorable spectacle than was lately exhibited in the public funeral
of that great, illustrious, and no less fortunate man, Verginius Rufus.
He lived thirty years after he had reached the zenith of his fame.
He read poems composed in his honour, he read histories of his
achievements, and was himself witness of his fame among posterity.
He was thrice raised to the dignity of consul, that he might at

212 PLINY

least be the highest of subjects, who 1 had refused to be the first
of princes. As he escaped the resentment of those emperors to whom
his virtues had given umbrage and even rendered him odious, and
ended his days when this best of princes, this friend of mankind, 2
was in quiet possession of the empire, it seems as if Providence
had purposely preserved him to these times, that he might receive
the honour of a public funeral. He reached his eighty-fourth year,
in full tranquillity and universally revered, having enjoyed strong
health during his lifetime, with the exception of a trembling in
his hands, which, however, gave him no pain. His last illness,
indeed, was severe and tedious, but even that circumstance added
to his reputation. As he was practising his voice with a view of
returning his public acknowledgments to the emperor, who had
promoted him to the consulship, a large volume he had taken into
his hand, and which happened to be too heavy for so old a man
to hold standing up, slid from his grasp. In hastily endeavouring
to recover it, his foot slipped on the smooth pavement, and he
fell down and broke his thigh-bone, which, being clumsily set, his
age as well being against him, did not properly unite again. The
funeral obsequies paid to the memory of this great man have
done honour to the emperor, to the age, and to the bar. The consul
Cornelius Tacitus 3 pronounced his funeral oration, and thus his
good fortune was crowned by the public applause of so eloquent
an orator. He has departed from our midst, full of years, indeed,
and of glory; as illustrious by the honours he refused as by those
he accepted. Yet still we shall miss him and lament him, as the
shining model of a past age; I, especially, shall feel his loss, for
I not only admired him as a patriot, but loved him as a friend.
We were of the same province, and of neighbouring towns, and
our estates were also contiguous. Besides these accidental connec-
tions, he was left my guardian, and always treated me with a

1 "Verginius Rufus was governor of Upper Germany at the time of the revolt of
Julius Vindex in Gaul, A.D. 68. The soldiers of Verginius wished to raise him to the
empire, but he refused the honour, and marched against Vindex, who perished before
Vesontio. After the death of Nero, Verginius supported the claims of Galba, and
accompanied him to Rome. Upon Otho's death, the soldiers again attempted to
proclaim Verginius emperor, and in consequence of his refusal of the honour, he
narrowly escaped with his life." (See Smith's Diet, of Greek and Rom. Biog., &c.)
2 Nerva. 3 The historian.

LETTERS 213

parent's affection. Whenever I offered myself as a candidate for
any office in the state, he constantly supported me with his interest;
and although he had long since given up all such services to friends,
he would kindly leave his retirement and come to give me his
vote in person. On the day on which the priests nominate those
they consider most worthy of the sacred office, 4 he constantly pro-
posed me. Even in his last illness, apprehending the possibility of
the senate's appointing him one of the five commissioners for
reducing the public expenses, he fixed upon me, young as I am,
to bear his excuses, in preference to so many other friends, elderly
men too, and of consular rank, and said to me, "Had I a son of
my own, I would entrust you with this matter." And so I cannot
but lament his death, as though it were premature, and pour out
my grief into your bosom; if indeed one has any right to grieve,
or to call it death at all, which to such a man terminates his mortality,
rather than ends his life. He lives, and will live on for ever; and
his fame will extend and be more celebrated by posterity, now that
he is gone from our sight. I had much else to write to you, but
my mind is full of this. I keep thinking of Verginius: I see him
before me: I am for ever fondly yet vividly imagining that I hear
him, am speaking to him, embrace him. There are men amongst
us, his fellow-citizens, perhaps, who may rival him in virtue; but
not one that will ever approach him in glory. Farewell.

XVIII
To NEPOS

THE great fame of Isaeus had already preceded him here; but we
find him even more wonderful than we had heard. He possesses
the utmost readiness, copiousness, and abundance of language: he
always speaks extempore, and his lectures are as finished as though
he had spent a long time over their written composition. His style

4 Namely, of augurs. "This college, as regulated by Sylla, consisted of fifteen,
who were all persons of the first distinction in Rome; it was a priesthood for life, of a
character indelible, which no crime or forfeiture could efface; it was necessary that
every candidate should be nominated to the people by two augurs, who gave a solemn
testimony upon oath of his dignity and fitness for that office." Middleton's Life of
Cicero, p. 147. A/.

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is Greek, or rather the genuine Attic. His exordiums are terse,
elegant, attractive, and occasionally impressive and majestic. He
suggests several subjects for discussion, allows his audience their
choice, sometimes to even name which side he shall take, rises,
arranges himself, and begins. At once he has everything almost
equally at command. Recondite meanings of things are suggested
to you, and words what words they are! exquisitely chosen and
polished. These extempore speeches of his show the wideness of
his reading, and how much practice he has had in composition.
His preface is to the point, his narrative lucid, his summing up
forcible, his rhetorical ornament imposing. In a word, he teaches,
entertains, and affects you; and you are at a loss to decide which
of the three he does best. His reflections are frequent, his syllogisms
also are frequent, condensed, and carefully finished, a result not
easily attainable even with the pen. As for his memory, you would
hardly believe what it is capable of. He repeats from a long way
back what he has previously delivered extempore, without missing
a single word. This marvellous faculty he has acquired by dint of
great application and practice, for night and day he does nothing,
hears nothing, says nothing else. He has passed his sixtieth year
and is still only a rhetorician, and I know no class of men more
single-hearted, more genuine, more excellent than this class. We
who have to go through the rough work of the bar and of real
disputes unavoidably contract a certain unprincipled adroitness. The
school, the lecture-room, the imaginary case, all this, on the other
hand, is perfectly innocent and harmless, and equally enjoyable,
especially to old people, for what can be happier at that time of
life than to enjoy what we found pleasantest in our young days?
I consider Isaeus then, not only the most eloquent, but the happiest,
of men, and if you are not longing to make his acquaintance, you
must be made of stone and iron. So, if not upon my account, or
for any other reason, come, for the sake of hearing this man, at
least. Have you never read of a certain inhabitant of Cadiz who
was so impressed with the name and fame of Livy that he came
from the remotest corner of the earth on purpose to see him, and,
his curiosity gratified, went straight home again. It is utter want

LETTERS 215

o taste, shows simple ignorance, is almost an actual disgrace to a
man, not to set any high value upon a proficiency in so pleasing,
noble, refining a science. "I have authors," you will reply, "here
in my own study, just as eloquent." True: but then those authors
you can read at any time, while you cannot always get the oppor-
tunity of hearing eloquence. Besides, as the proverb says, "The living
voice is that which sways the soul"; yes, far more. For notwith-
standing what one reads is more clearly understood than what one
hears, yet the utterance, countenance, garb, aye, and the very ges-
tures of the speaker, alike concur in fixing an impression upon the
mind; that is, unless we disbelieve the truth of yEschines' statement,
who, after he had read to the Rhodians that celebrated speech of
Demosthenes, upon their expressing their admiration of it, is said
to have added, "Ah! what would you have said, could you have
heard the wild beast himself?" And ^Eschines, if we may take
Demosthenes' word for it, was no mean elocutionist; yet, he could
not but confess that the speech would have sounded far finer from
the lips of its author. I am saying all this with a view to persuading
you to hear Issus, if even for the mere sake of being able to say
you have heard him. Farewell.

XIX

To AVITUS

IT would be a long story, and of no great importance, to tell
you by what accident I found myself dining the other day with an
individual with whom I am by no means intimate, and who, in
his own opinion, does things in good style and economically as well,
but according to mine, with meanness and extravagance combined.
Some very elegant dishes were served up to himself and a few more
of us, whilst those placed before the rest of the company consisted
simply of cheap dishes and scraps. There were, in small bottles,
three different kinds of wine; not that the guests might take their
choice, but that they might not have any option in their power;
one kind being for himself, and for us; another sort for his lesser
friends (for it seems he has degrees of friends), and the third for

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his own freedmen and ours. My neighbour, 1 reclining next me,
observing this, asked me if I approved the arrangement. Not at all,
I told him. "Pray then," he asked, "what is your method upon
such occasions?" "Mine," I returned, "is to give all my visitors
the same reception; for when I give an invitation, it is to entertain,
not distinguish, my company: I place every man upon my own level
whom I admit to my table." "Not excepting even your freedmen?"
"Not excepting even my freedmen, whom I consider on these occa-
sions my guests, as much as any of the rest." He replied, "This
must cost you a great deal." "Not in the least." "How can that be?"
"Simply because, although my freedmen don't drink the same wine
as myself, yet I drink the same as they do." And, no doubt about
it, if a man is wise enough to moderate his appetite, he will not
find it such a very expensive thing to share with all his visitors
what he takes himself. Restrain it, keep it in, if you wish to be a
true economist. You will find temperance a far better way of
saving than treating other people rudely can be. Why do I say
all this? Why, for fear a young man of your high character and
promise should be imposed upon by this immoderate luxury which
prevails at some tables, under the specious notion of frugality. When-
ever any folly of this sort falls under my eye, I shall, just because
I care for you, point it out to you as an example you ought to shun.
Remember, then, nothing is more to be avoided than this modern
alliance of luxury with meanness; odious enough when existing
separate and distinct, but still more hateful where you meet with
them together. Farewell.

XX

To MACRINTJS

THE senate decreed yesterday, on the emperor's motion, a tri-
umphal statue to Vestricius Spurinna: not as they would to many
others, who never were in action, or saw a camp, or heard the

1 The ancient Greeks and Romans did not sit up at the table as we do, but re-
clined round it on couches, three and sometimes even four occupying one couch; at
least this latter was the custom among the Romans. Each guest lay flat upon his
chest while eating, reaching out his hand from time to time to the table, for what
he might require. As soon as he had made a sufficient meal, he turned over upon
his left side, leaning on the elbow.

LETTERS 217

sound of a trumpet, unless at a show; but as it would be decreed
to those who have justly bought such a distinction with their blood,
their exertions, and their deeds. Spurinna forcibly restored the king
of the Bructeri 1 to his throne; and this by the noblest kind of
victory; for he subdued that warlike people by the terror of the
mere display of his preparation for the campaign. This is his
reward as a hero, while, to console him for the loss of his son
Cottius, who died during his absence upon that expedition, they
also voted a statue to the youth; a very unusual honour for one
so young; but the services of the father deserved that the pain
of so severe a wound should be soothed by no common balm. Indeed
Cottius himself evinced such remarkable promise of the highest
qualities that it is but fitting his short, limited term of life should
be extended, as it were, by this kind of immortality. He was so pure
and blameless, so full of dignity, and commanded such respect, that
he might have challenged in moral goodness much older men, with
whom he now shares equal honours. Honours, if I am not mistaken,
conferred not only to perpetuate the memory of the deceased youth,
and in consolation to the surviving father, but for the sake of public
example also. This will rouse and stimulate our young men to
cultivate every worthy principle, when they see such rewards be-
stowed upon one of their own years, provided he deserve them: at
the same time that men of quality will be encouraged to beget chil-
dren and to have the joy and satisfaction of leaving a worthy race
behind, if their children survive them, or of so glorious a consolation,
should they survive their children. Looking at it in this light then,
I am glad, upon public grounds, that a statue is decreed Cottius:
and for my own sake too, just as much; for I loved this most
favoured, gifted youth, as ardently as I now grievously miss him
amongst us. So that it will be a great satisfaction to me to be able
to look at this figure from time to time as I pass by, contemplate it,
stand underneath, and walk to and fro before it. For if having the
pictures of the departed placed in our homes lightens sorrow, how
much more those public representations of them which are not only
memorials of their air and countenance, but of their glory and honour
besides! Farewell.

1 A people of Germany.

2l8 PLINY

XXI

To PRISCUS

As I know you eagerly embrace every opportunity of obliging me,
so there is no man whom I had rather be under an obligation to.
I apply to you, therefore, in preference to anyone else, for a
favour which I am extremely desirous of obtaining. You, who are
commander-in-chief of a very considerable army, have many oppor-
tunities of exercising your generosity; and the length of time you
have enjoyed that post must have enabled you to provide for all
your own friends. I hope you will now turn your eyes upon some
of mine: as indeed they are but a few. Your generous disposition,
I know, would be better pleased if the number were greater, but
one or two will suffice my modest desires; at present I will only
mention Voconius Romanus. His father was of great distinction
among the Roman knights, and his father-in-law, or, I might more
properly call him, his second father (for his affectionate treatment
of Voconius entitles him to that appellation), was still more con-
spicuous. His mother was one of the most considerable ladies of
Upper Spain: you know what character the people of that province
bear, and how remarkable they are for their strictness of their
manners. As for himself, he lately held the post of flamen. 1 Now,
from the time when we were first students together, I have felt very
tenderly attached to him. We lived under the same roof, in town
and country, we joked together, we shared each other's serious
thoughts: for where indeed could I have found a truer friend or
pleasanter companion than he? In his conversation, and even in his
very voice and countenance, there is a rare sweetness; as at the bar
he displays talents of a high order; acuteness, elegance, ease, and
skill : and he writes such letters too that were you to read them you
would imagine they had been dictated by the Muses themselves. I
have a very great affection for him, as he has for me. Even in the
earlier part of our lives, I warmly embraced every opportunity of

1 "Any Roman priest devoted to the service of one particular god was designated
Flamen, receiving a distinguishing epithet from the deity to whom he ministered.
The office was understood to last for life; but a flamen might be compelled to resign
for a breach of duty, or even on account of the occurrence of an ill-omened accident
while discharging his functions." Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities.

LETTERS 219

doing him all the good services which then lay in my power, as
I have lately obtained for him from our most gracious prince 2 the
privilege 3 granted to those who have three children: a favour which,
though Caesar very rarely bestows, and always with great caution,
yet he conferred, at my request, in such a manner as to give it the
air and grace of being his own choice. The best way of showing that
I think he deserves the kindnesses he has already received from me
is by increasing them, especially as he always accepts my services
so gratefully as to deserve more. Thus I have shown you what
manner of man Romanus is, how thoroughly I have proved his
worth, and how much I love him. Let me entreat you to honour
him with your patronage in a way suitable to the generosity of
your heart, and the eminence of your station. But above all let him
have your affection; for though you were to confer upon him the
utmost you have in your power to bestow, you can give him nothing
more valuable than your friendship. That you may see he is worthy
of it, even to the closest degree of intimacy, I send you this brief
sketch of his tastes, character, his whole life, in fact. I should con-
tinue my intercessions in his behalf, but that I know you prefer
not being pressed, and I have already repeated them in every line
of this letter: for to show a good reason for what one asks is true
intercession, and of the most effectual kind. Farewell.

XXII
To MAXIMUS

You guessed correctly: I am much engaged in pleading before
the Hundred. The business there is more fatiguing than pleasant.
Trifling, inconsiderable cases, mostly; it is very seldom that anything
worth speaking of, either from the importance of the question or
the rank of the persons concerned, comes before them. There are
very few lawyers either whom I take any pleasure in working with.
The rest, a parcel of impudent young fellows, many of whom one
knows nothing whatever about, come here to get some practice in

2 Trajan.

3 By a law passed A.U. 762, it was enacted that every citizen of Rome who had
three children should be excused from all troublesome offices where he lived. This
privilege the emperors sometimes extended to those who were not legally entitled to it.

22O PLINY

speaking, and conduct themselves so forwardly and with such utter
want of deference that my friend Attilius exactly hit it, I think,
when he made the observation that "boys set out at the bar with
cases in the Court of the Hundred as they do at school with Homer,"
intimating that at both places they begin where they should end.
But in former times (so my elders tell me) no youth, even of the
best families, was allowed in unless introduced by some person of
consular dignity. As things are now, since every fence of modesty
and decorum is broken down, and all distinctions are levelled and
confounded, the present young generation, so far from waiting to
be introduced, break in of their own free will. The audience at
their heels are fit attendants upon such orators; a low rabble of
hired mercenaries, supplied by contract. They get together in the
middle of the court, where the dole is dealt round to them as
openly as if they were in a dining-room: and at this noble price
they run from court to court. The Greeks have an appropriate name
in their language for this sort of people, importing that they are
applauders by profession, and we stigmatize them with the oppro-
brious title of table-flatterers: yet the dirty business alluded to
increases every day. It was only yesterday two of my domestic
officers, mere striplings, were hired to cheer somebody or other,
at three denarii apiece: 1 this is what the highest eloquence goes for.
Upon these terms we fill as many benches as we please, and gather
a crowd: this is how those rending shouts are raised, as soon as the
individual standing up in the middle of the ring gives the signal.
For, you must know, these honest fellows, who understand nothing
of what is said, or, if they did, could not hear it, would be at a
loss without a signal, how to time their applause: for many of
them don't hear a syllable, and are as noisy as any of the rest. If,
at any time, you should happen to be passing by when the court
is sitting, and feel at all interested to know how any speaker is
acquitting himself, you have no occasion to give yourself the trouble
of getting up on the judge's platform, no need to listen; it is easy
enough to find out, for you may be quite sure he that gets most
applause deserves it the least. Largius Licinus was the first to
introduce this fashion; but then he went no farther than to go

1 About 54 cents.

LETTERS 221

round and solicit an audience. I know, I remember hearing this
from my tutor Quinctilian. "I used," he told me, "to go and hear
Domitius Afer, and as he was pleading once before the Hundred
in his usual slow and impressive manner, hearing, close to him, ?
most immoderate and unusual noise, and being a good deal sur-
prised at this, he left off: the noise ceased, and he began again: he
was interrupted a second time, and a third. At last he enquired who
it was that was speaking? He was told, Licinus. Upon which,
he broke off the case, exclaiming, 'Eloquence is no more!' " The
truth is it had only begun to decline then, when in Afer's opinion
it no longer existed : whereas now it is almost extinct. I am ashamed
to tell you of the mincing and affected pronunciation of the speakers,
and of the shrill-voiced applause with which their effusions are
received; nothing seems wanting to complete this singsong per-
formance except claps, or rather cymbals and tambourines. Howlings
indeed (for I can call such applause, which would be indecent even
in the theatre, by no other name) abound in plenty. Up to this time
the interest of my friends and the consideration of my early time
of life have kept me in this court, as I am afraid they might think
I was doing it to shirk work rather than to avoid these indecencies,
were I to leave it just yet: however, I go there less frequently than
I did, and am thus effecting a gradual retreat. Farewell.

XXIII
To GALLUS

You are surprised that I am so fond of my Laurentine, or (if
you prefer the name) my Laurens: but you will cease to wonder
when I acquaint you with the beauty of the villa, the advantages
of its situation, and the extensive view of the sea-coast. It is only
seventeen miles from Rome; so that when I have finished my
business in town, I can pass my evenings here after a good, satis-
factory day's work. There are two different roads to it: if you
go by that of Laurentum, you must turn off at the fourteenth mile-
stone; if by Astia, at the eleventh. Both of them are sandy in places,
which makes it a little heavier and longer by carriage, but short
and easy on horseback. The landscape affords plenty of variety.

222 PLINY

the view in some places being closed in by woods, in others extending
over broad meadows, where numerous flocks of sheep and herds
of cattle, which the severity of the winter has driven from the
mountains, fatten in the spring warmth, and on the rich pasturage.
My villa is of a convenient size without being expensive to keep
up. The courtyard in front is plain, but not mean, through which
you enter porticoes shaped into the form of the letter D, enclosing
a small but cheerful area between. These make a capital retreat
for bad weather, not only as they are shut in with windows, but
particularly as they are sheltered by a projection of the roof. From
the middle of these porticoes you pass into a bright, pleasant inner
court, and out of that into a handsome hall running out towards
the sea-shore; so that when there is a southwest breeze, it is gently
washed with the waves, which spend themselves at its base. On
every side of this hall there are either folding doors or windows
equally large, by which means you have a view from the front
and the two sides of three different seas, as it were: from the back
you see the middle court, the portico, and the area; and from
another point you look through the portico into the courtyard, and
out upon the woods and distant mountains beyond. On the left
hand of this hall, a little farther from the sea, lies a large drawing-
room, and beyond that, a second of a smaller size, which has one
window to the rising and another to the setting sun: this as well
has a view of the sea, but more distant and agreeable. The angle
formed by the projection of the dining-room with this drawing-
room retains and intensifies the warmth of the sun, and this forms
our winter quarters and family gymnasium, which is sheltered
from all the winds except those which bring on clouds, but the
clear sky comes out again before the warmth has gone out of the
place. Adjoining this angle is a room forming the segment of a
circle, the windows of which are so arranged as to get the sun all
through the day: in the walls are contrived a sort of cases, containing
a collection of authors who can never be read too often. Next to
this is a bedroom, connected with it by a raised passage furnished
with pipes, which supply, at a wholesome temperature, and dis-
tribute to all parts of this room, the heat they receive. The rest

LETTERS 223

of this side of the house is appropriated to the use of my slaves
and freedmen; but most of the rooms in it are respectable enough
to put my guests into. In the opposite wing is a most elegant,
tastefully fitted-up bedroom; next to which lies another, which you
may call either a large bedroom or a modified dining-room; it is very
warm and light, not only from the direct rays of the sun, but by
their reflection from the sea. Beyond this is a bedroom with an
anteroom, the height of which renders it cool in summer, its thick
walls warm in winter, for it is sheltered, every way, from the winds.
To this apartment another anteroom is joined by one common
wall. From thence you enter into the wide and spacious cooling-
room belonging to the bath, from the opposite walls of which two
curved basins are thrown out, so to speak; which are more than
large enough if you consider that the sea is close at hand. Ad-
jacent to this is the anointing-room, then the sweating-room, and
beyond that the bath-heating room: adjoining are two other little
bath-rooms, elegantly rather than sumptuously fitted up: annexed
to them is a warm bath of wonderful construction, in which one
can swim and take a view of the sea at the same time. Not far
from this stands the tennis-court, which lies open to the warmth
of the afternoon sun. From thence you go up a sort of turret which
has two rooms below, with the same number above, besides a
dining-room commanding a very extensive lookout on to the sea,
the coast, and the beautiful villas scattered along the shore line.
At the other end is a second turret, containing a room that gets
the rising and setting sun. Behind this is a large store-room and
granary, and underneath, a spacious dining-room, where only the
murmur and break of the sea can be heard, even in a storm: it
looks out upon the garden, and the gestatio 1 running round the
garden. The gestatio is bordered round with box, and, where that
is decayed, with rosemary: for the box, wherever sheltered by the
buildings, grows plentifully, but where it lies open and exposed to
the weather and spray from the sea, though at some distance from
the latter, it quite withers up. Next the gestatio, and running along
inside it, is a shady vine-plantation, the path of which is so soft

1 Avenue.

224 PLINY

and easy to the tread that you may walk barefoot upon it. The
garden is chiefly planted with fig and mulberry trees, to which this
soil is as favourable as it is averse from all others. Here is a dining-
room, which, though it stands away from the sea, enjoys the garden
view, which is just as pleasant: two apartments run round the back
part of it, the windows of which look out upon the entrance of
the villa, and into a fine kitchen-garden. From here extends an
enclosed portico which, from its great length, you might take for
a public one. It has a range of windows on either side, but more
on the side facing the sea, and fewer on the garden side, and these,
single windows and alternate with the opposite rows. In calm,
clear weather these are all thrown open; but if it blows, those on
the weather side are closed, whilst those away from the wind can
remain open without any inconvenience. Before this enclosed portico
lies a terrace fragrant with the scent of violets, and warmed by the
reflection of the sun from the portico, which, while it retains the
rays, keeps away the northeast wind; and it is as warm on this side
as it is cool on the side opposite: in the same way it is a protection
against the wind from the southwest; and thus, in short, by means
of its several sides, breaks the force of the winds, from whatever quar-
ter they may blow. These are some of its winter advantages; they are
still more appreciable in the summer-time; for at that season it
throws a shade upon the terrace during the whole of the forenoon,
and upon the adjoining portion of the gestatio and garden in the
afternoon, casting a greater or less shade on this side or on that as
the day increases or decreases. But the portico itself is coolest just at
the time when the sun is at its hottest, that is, when the rays fall
directly upon the roof. Also, by opening the windows you let in the
western breezes in a free current, which prevents the place getting
oppressive with close and stagnant air. At the upper end of the ter-
race and portico stands a detached garden building, which I call my
javourite; my favourite indeed, as I put it up myself. It contains a
very warm winter-room, one side of which looks down upon the
terrace, while the other has a view of the sea, and both lie exposed to
the sun. The bedroom opens on to the covered portico by means of
folding doors, while its window looks out upon the sea. On that side
next the sea, and facing the middle wall, is formed a very elegant little

LETTERS 225

recess, which, by means of transparent 2 windows and a curtain
drawn to or aside, can be made part of the adjoining room, or
separated from it. It contains a couch and two chairs: as you lie
upon this couch, from where your feet are you get a peep of the
sea; looking behind, you see the neighbouring villas, and from
the head you have a view of the woods: these three views may be
seen either separately, from so many different windows, or blended
together in one. Adjoining this is a bedroom, which neither the
servants' voices, the murmuring of the sea, the glare of lightning,
nor daylight itself can penetrate, unless you open the windows. This
profound tranquillity and seclusion are occasioned by a passage sepa-
rating the wall of this room from that of the garden, and thus,
by means of this intervening space, every noise is drowned. Annexed
to this is a tiny stove-room, which, by opening or shutting a little
aperture, lets out or retains the heat from underneath, according as
you require. Beyond this lie a bedroom and anteroom, which enjoy
the sun, though obliquely indeed, from the time it rises till the
afternoon. When I retire to this garden summer-house, I fancy
myself a hundred miles away from my villa, and take especial
pleasure in it at the feast of the Saturnalia, 3 when, by the licence of
that festive season, every other part of my house resounds with my
servants' mirth: thus I neither interrupt their amusement nor they
my studies. Amongst the pleasures and conveniences of this situa-
tion, there is one drawback, and that is, the want of running water;
but then there are wells about the place, or rather springs, for they
lie close to the surface. And, altogether, the quality of this coast
is remarkable; for dig where you may, you meet, upon the first
turning up of the ground, with a spring of water, quite pure, not
in the least salt, although so near the sea. The neighbouring woods
supply us with all the fuel we require, the other necessaries Ostia
furnishes. Indeed, to a moderate man, even the village (between

2 "Windows made of a transparent stone called lapis speculates (mica), which was
first found in Hispania Citerior, and afterwards in Cyprus, Cappadocia, Sicily, and
Africa; but the best came from Spain and Cappadocia. It was easily split into the
thinnest sheets. Windows made of this stone were called specularia." Smith's Dic-
tionary of Antiquities.

3 A feast held in honour of the god Saturn, which began on the igth of December,
and continued, as some say, for seven days. It was a time of general rejoicing,
particularly among the slaves, who had at this season the privilege of taking great
liberties with their masters. A/.

226 PLINY

which and my house there is only one villa) would supply all
ordinary requirements. It has three public baths, which are a great
convenience if it happen that friends come in unexpectedly, or
make too short a stay to allow time for preparing my own. The
whole coast is very pleasantly sprinkled with villas either in rows
or detached, which, whether looking at them from the sea or the
shore, present the appearance of so many different cities. The strand
is, sometimes, after a long calm, perfectly smooth, though, in general,
through the storms driving the waves upon it, it is rough and uneven.
I cannot boast that our sea is plentiful in choice fish; however, it
supplies us with capital soles and prawns; but as to other kinds of
provisions, my villa aspires to excel even inland countries, particularly
in milk: for the cattle come up there from the meadows in large
numbers, in pursuit of water and shade. Tell me, now, have I not
good reason for living in, staying in, loving, such a retreat, which
if you feel no appetite for, you must be morbidly attached to town ?
And I only wish you would feel inclined to come down to it, that
to so many charms with which my little villa abounds, it might
have the very considerable addition of your company to recommend
it. Farewell.

XXIV
To CEREALIS

You advise me to read my late speech before an assemblage of
my friends. I shall do so, as you advise it, though I have strong
scruples. Compositions of this sort lose, I well know, all their force
and fire, and even their very name almost, by a mere recital. It is
the solemnity of the tribunal, the concourse of advocates, the sus-
pense of the event, the fame of the several pleaders concerned, the
different parties formed amongst the audience; add to this the
gestures, the pacing, aye, the actual running, to and fro, of the
speaker, the body working 1 in harmony with every inward emotion,

1 Cicero and Quintilian have laid down rules how far, and in what instances, this
liberty was allowable, and both agree it ought to be used with great sagacity and
judgment. The latter of these excellent critics mentions a witticism of Flavius
Virginius, who asked one of these orators, "Quot millia passuum dcclamasset?" How
many miles he had declaimed. M.

LETTERS 227

that conspire to give a spirit and a grace to what he delivers. This
is the reason that those who plead sitting, though they retain most of
the advantages possessed by those who stand up to plead, weaken
the whole force of their oratory. The eyes and hands of the reader,
those important instruments of graceful elocution, being engaged,
it is no wonder that the attention of the audience droops, without
anything extrinsic to keep it up, no allurements of gesture to attract,
no smart, stinging impromptus to enliven. To these general con-
siderations I must add this particular disadvantage which attends
the speech in question, that it is of the argumentative kind; and it
is natural for an author to infer that what he wrote with labour
will not be read with pleasure. For who is there so unprejudiced
as not to prefer the attractive and sonorous to the sombre and un-
ornamented in style? It is very unreasonable that there should be
any distinction; however, it is certain the judges generally expect
one style of pleading, and the audience another; whereas an auditor
ought to be affected only by those parts which would especially
strike him, were he in the place of the judge. Nevertheless it is
possible the objections which lie against this piece may be sur-
mounted in consideration of the novelty it has to recommend
it: the novelty, I mean, with respect to us; for the Greek orators
have a method of reasoning upon a different occasion, not altogether
unlike that which I have employed. They, when they would throw
out a law as contrary to some former one unrepealed, argue by com-
paring those together; so I, on the contrary, endeavour to prove
that the crime, which I was insisting upon as falling within the
intent and meaning of the law relating to public extortions, was
agreeable, not only to that law, but likewise to other laws of the
same nature. Those who are ignorant of the jurisprudence of their
country can have no taste for reasonings of this kind, but those who
are not ought to be proportionably the more favourable in the judg-
ments they pass upon them. I shall endeavour, therefore, if you
persist in my reciting it, to collect as learned an audience as I can.
But before you determine this point, do weigh impartially the
different considerations I have laid before you, and then decide as
reason shall direct; for it is reason that must justify you; obedience
to your commands will be a sufficient apology for me. Farewell.

228 PLINY

XXV

To CALVISIUS

GIVE me a penny, and I will tell you a story "worth gold," or,
rather, you shall hear two or three; for one brings to my mind
another. It makes no difference with which I begin. Verania, the
widow of Piso, the Piso, I mean, whom Galba adopted, lay ex-
tremely ill, and Regulus paid her a visit. By the way, mark the
assurance of the man, visiting a lady who detested him herself,
and to whose husband he was a declared enemy! Even barely to
enter her house would have been bad enough, but he actually
went and seated himself by her bedside and began enquiring on
what day and hour she was born. Being informed of these im-
portant particulars, he composes his countenance, fixes his eyes,
mutters something to himself, counts upon his fingers, and all this
merely to keep the poor sick lady in suspense. When he had finished,
"You are," he says, "in one of your climacterics; however, you
will get over it. But for your greater satisfaction, I will consult
with a certain diviner, whose skill I have frequently experienced."
Accordingly off he goes, performs a sacrifice, and returns with
the strongest assurances that the omens confirmed what he had
promised on the part of the stars. Upon this the good woman,
whose danger made her credulous, calls for her will and gives
Regulus a legacy. She grew worse shortly after this; and in her
last moments exclaimed against this wicked, treacherous, and worse
than perjured wretch, who had sworn falsely to her by his own
son's life. But imprecations of this sort are as common with
Regulus as they are impious; and he continually devotes that un-
happy youth to the curses of those gods whose vengeance his own
frauds every day provoke.

Velleius Blaesus, a man of consular rank, and remarkable for his
immense wealth, in his last illness was anxious to make some altera-
tions in his will. Regulus, who had lately endeavoured to insinuate
himself into his good graces, hoped to get something from the
new will, and accordingly addresses himself to his physicians, and
conjures them to exert all their skill to prolong the poor man's

LETTERS 229

life. But after the will was signed, he changes his character, re-
versing his tone: "How long," says he to these very same physicians,
"do you intend keeping this man in misery? Since you cannot
preserve his life, why do you grudge him the happy release of
death?" Bla?sus dies, and, as if he had overheard every word that
Regulus had said, has not left him one farthing. And now have
you had enough? or are you for the third, according to rhetorical
canon ? If so, Regulus will supply you. You must know, then, that
Aurelia, a lady of remarkable accomplishments, purposing to execute
her will, 1 had put on her smartest dress for the occasion. Regulus,
who was present as a witness, turned to the lady, and "Pray," says
he, "leave me these fine clothes." Aurelia thought the man was
joking: but he insisted upon it perfectly seriously, and, to be brief,
obliged her to open her will and insert the dress she had on as a
legacy to him, watching as she wrote, and then looking over it to
see that it was all down correctly. Aurelia, however, is still alive:
though Regulus, no doubt, when he solicited this bequest, expected
to enjoy it pretty soon. The fellow gets estates, he gets legacies,
conferred upon him, as if he really deserved them! But why should
I go on dwelling upon this in a city where wickedness and knavery
have, for this time past, received, the same, do I say, nay, even
greater encouragement, than modesty and virtue? Regulus is a
glaring instance of this truth, who, from a state of poverty, has
by a train of villainies acquired such immense riches that he once
told me, upon consulting the omens to know how soon he should be
worth sixty millions of sesterces, 2 he found them so favourable as
to portend he should possess double that sum. And possibly he may,
if he continues to dictate wills for other people in this way: a sort
of fraud, in my opinion, the most infamous of any. Farewell.

XXVI

To CALVISIUS

I NEVER, I think, spent any time more agreeably than my time
lately with Spurinna. So agreeably, indeed, that if ever I should

1 This was an act of great ceremony; and if Aurelia's dress was of the kind which
some of the Roman ladies used, the legacy must have been considerable which Regulut
had the impudence to ask. M. 2 $2,350,000.

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arrive at old age, there is no man whom I would sooner choose for
my model, for nothing can be more perfect in arrangement than
his mode of life. I look upon order in human actions, especially at
that advanced age, with the same sort of pleasure as I behold the
settled course of the heavenly bodies. In young men, indeed, a
little confusion and disarrangement is all well enough: but in age,
when business is unseasonable, and ambition indecent, all should
be composed and uniform. This rule Spurinna observes with the
most religious consistency. Even in those matters which one might
call insignificant, were they not of every-day occurrence, he observes
a certain periodical season and method. The early morning he
passes on his couch; at eight he calls for his slippers, and walks
three miles, exercising mind and body together. On his return,
if he has any friends in the house with him, he gets upon some
entertaining and interesting topic of conversation; if by himself,
some book is read to him, sometimes when visitors are there even,
if agreeable to the company. Then he has a rest, and after that
either takes up a book or resumes his conversation in preference to
reading. By and by he goes out for a drive in his carnage, either
with his wife, a most admirable woman, or with some friend: a
happiness which lately was mine. How agreeable, how delightful
it is getting a quiet time alone with him in this way! You could
imagine you were listening to some worthy of ancient times! What
deeds, what men you hear about, and with what noble precepts
you are imbued! Yet all delivered with so modest an air that there
is not the least appearance of dictating. When he has gone about
seven miles, he gets out of his chariot and walks a mile more, after
which he returns home, and either takes a rest or goes back to his
couch and writing. For he composes most elegant lyrics both in
Greek and Latin. So wonderfully soft, sweet, and gay they are, while
the author's own unsullied life lends them additional charm. When
the baths are ready, which in winter is about three o'clock, and in
summer about two, he undresses himself and, if there happen to be
no wind, walks for some time in the sun. After this he has a good
brisk game of tennis: for by this sort of exercise too, he combats
the effects of old age. When he has bathed, he throws himself upon
his couch, but waits a little before he begins eating, and in the

LETTERS 23 I

meanwhile has some light and entertaining author read to him. In
this, as in all the rest, his friends are at full liberty to share; or to
employ themselves in any other way, just as they prefer. You sit
down to an elegant dinner, without extravagant display, which is
served up in antique plate of pure silver. He has another complete
service in Corinthian metal, which, though he admires as a curiosity,
is far from being his passion. During dinner he is frequently enter-
tained with the recital of some dramatic piece, by way of seasoning
his very pleasures with study; and although he continues at the
table, even in summer, till the night is somewhat advanced, yet he
prolongs the entertainment with so much affability and politeness
that none of his guests ever finds it tedious. By this method of living
he has preserved all his senses entire, and his body vigorous and
active to his seventy-eighth year, without showing any sign of old
age except wisdom. This is the sort of life I ardently aspire after;
as I purpose enjoying it when I shall arrive at those years which will
justify a retreat from active life. Meanwhile I am embarrassed with
a thousand affairs, in which Spurinna is at once my support and my
example : for he too, so long as it became him, discharged his profes-
sional duties, held magistracies, governed provinces, and by toiling
hard earned the repose he now enjoys. I propose to myself the same
career and the same limits: and I here give it to you under my hand
that I do so. If an ill-timed ambition should carry me beyond those
bounds, produce this very letter of mine in court against me; and
condemn me to repose, whenever I can enjoy it without being
reproached with indolence. Farewell.

XXVII

To B^BIUS MACER

IT gives me great pleasure to find you such a reader of my uncle's
works as to wish to have a complete collection of them, and to ask
me for the names of them all. I will act as index then, and you shall
know the very order in which they were written, for the studious
reader likes to know this. The first work of his was a treatise in
one volume, "On the Use of the Dart by Cavalry"; this he wrote
when in command of one of the cavalry corps of our allied troops,

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and is drawn up with great care and ingenuity. "The Life of Pom-
ponius Secundus," 1 in two volumes. Pomponius had a great affection
for him, and he thought he owed this tribute to his memory. "The
History of the Wars in Germany," in twenty books, in which he
gave an account of all the battles we were engaged in against that
nation. A dream he had while serving in the army in Germany
first suggested the design of this work to him. He imagined that
Drusus Nero 2 (who extended his conquest very far into that country,
and there lost his life) appeared to him in his sleep, and entreated
him to rescue his memory from oblivion. Next comes a work
entitled "The Student," in three parts, which from their length
spread into six volumes: a work in which are discussed the earliest
training and subsequent education of the orator. "Questions of
Grammar and Style," in eight books, written in the latter part of
Nero's reign, when the tyranny of the times made it dangerous
to engage in literary pursuits requiring freedom and elevation of
tone. He has completed the history which Aufidius Bassus 3 left
unfinished, and has added to it thirty books. And lastly he has left
thirty-seven books on Natural History, a work of great compass and
learning, and as full of variety as nature herself. You will wonder
how a man as busy as he was could find time to compose so many
books, and some of them too involving such care and labour. But
you will be still more surprised when you hear that he pleaded at
the bar for some time, that he died in his sixty-sixth year, that the
intervening time was employed partly in the execution of the highest
official duties, partly in attendance upon those emperors who
honoured him with their friendship. But he had a quick appre-
hension, marvellous power of application, and was of an exceedingly
wakeful temperament. He always began to study at midnight at the
time of the feast of Vulcan, not for the sake of good luck, but for

1 A poet to whom Quintilian assigns the highest rank, as a writer of tragedies,
among his contemporaries (book x., c. i. 98). Tacitus also speaks of him in terms
of high appreciation (Annals, v. 8).

2 Stepson of Augustus and brother to Tiberius. An amiable and popular prince.
He died at the close of his third campaign, from a fracture received by falling from
his horse.

3 A historian under Augustus and Tiberius. He wrote part of a history of Rome,
which was continued by the elder Pliny; also an account of the German war, to which
Quintilian makes allusion (Inst. x. 103), pronouncing him, as a historian, "estimable
in all respects, yet in some things failing to do himself justice."

LETTERS 233

learning's sake; in winter generally at one in the morning, but
never later than two, and often at twelve. 4 He was a most ready
sleeper, insomuch that he would sometimes, whilst in the midst of
his studies, fall off and then wake up again. Before daybreak he used
to wait upon Vespasian (who also used his nights for transacting
business in), and then proceed to execute the orders he had received.
As soon as he returned home, he gave what time was left to study.
After a short and light refreshment at noon (agreeably to the good
old custom of our ancestors) he would frequently in the summer,
if he was disengaged from business, lie down and bask in the sun;
during which time some author was read to him, while he took notes
and made extracts, for every book he read he made extracts out of,
indeed it was a maxim of his, that "no book was so bad but some
good might be got out of it." When this was over, he generally took
a cold bath, then some light refreshment and a little nap. After this,
as if it had been a new day, he studied till supper-time, when a book
was again read to him, which he would take down running notes
upon. I remember once, his reader having mispronounced a word,
one of my uncle's friends at the table made him go back to where
the word was and repeat it again; upon which my uncle said to his
friend, "Surely you understood it?" Upon his acknowledging that
he did, "Why, then," said he, "did you make him go back again?
We have lost more than ten lines by this interruption." Such an
economist he was of time! In the summer he used to rise from
supper at daylight, and in winter as soon as it was dark: a rule he
observed as strictly as if it had been a law of the state. Such was
his manner of life amid the bustle and turmoil of the town: but in
the country his whole time was devoted to study, excepting only
when he bathed. In this exception I include no more than the time

4 The distribution of time among the Romans was very different from ours. They
divided the night into four equal parts, which they called watches, each three
hours in length; and part of these they devoted either to the pleasures of the table
or to study. The natural day they divided into twelve hours, the first beginning with
sunrise, and the last ending with sunset: by which means their hours were of un-
equal length, varying according to the different seasons of the year. The time for
business began with sunrise, and continued to the fifth hour, being that of dinner,
which with them was only a slight repast. From thence to the seventh hour was a
time of repose; a custom which still prevails in Italy. The eighth hour was employed
in bodily exercises; after which they constantly bathed, and from thence went to
supper. M.

234 PLINY

during which he was actually in the bath; for all the while he was
being rubbed and wiped, he was employed either in hearing some
book read to him or in dictating himself. In going about anywhere,
as though he were disengaged from all other business, he applied his
mind wholly to that single pursuit. A shorthand writer constantly
attended him, with book and tablets, who, in the winter, wore a
particular sort of warm gloves, that the sharpness of the weather
might not occasion any interruption to my uncle's studies: and for
the same reason, when in Rome, he was always carried in a chair. I
recollect his once taking me to task for walking. "You need not,"
he said, "lose these hours." For he thought every hour gone that was
not given to study. Through this extraordinary application he
found time to compose the several treatises I have mentioned, besides
one hundred and sixty volumes of extracts which he left me in his
will, consisting of a kind of commonplace, written on both sides, in
very small hand, so that one might fairly reckon the number con-
siderably more. He used himself to tell us that when he was comp-
troller of the revenue in Spain, he could have sold these manuscripts
to Largius Licinus for four hundred thousand sesterces, 5 and then
there were not so many of them. When you consider the books he
has read, and the volumes he has written, are you not inclined to sus-
pect that he never was engaged in public duties or was ever in the
confidence of his prince? On the other hand, when you are told how
indefatigable he was in his studies, are you not inclined to wonder
that he read and wrote no more than he did? For, on one side,
what obstacles would not the business of a court throw in his way?
and on the other, what is it that such intense application might not
effect? It amuses me then when I hear myself called a studious
man, who in comparison with him am the merest idler. But
why do I mention myself, who am diverted from these pursuits by
numberless affairs both public and private? Who amongst those
whose whole lives are devoted to literary pursuits would not blush
and feel himself the most confirmed of sluggards by the side of him?
I see I have run out my letter farther than I had originally intended,
which was only to let you know, as you asked me, what works he
had left behind him. But I trust this will be no less acceptable to

5 $16,000.

LETTERS 235

you than the books themselves, as it may, possibly, not only excite
your curiosity to read his works, but also your emulation to copy his
example, by some attempts of a similar nature. Farewell.

XXVIII
To ANNIUS SEVERUS

I HAVE lately purchased with a legacy that was left me a small
statue of Corinthian brass. It is small indeed, but elegant and lifelike,
as far as I can form any judgment, which most certainly in matters
of this sort, as perhaps in all others, is extremely defective. However,
I do see the beauties of this figure: for, as it is naked the faults, if
there be any, as well as the perfections, are the more observable. It
represents an old man, in an erect attitude. The bones, muscles, veins,
and the very wrinkles, give the impression of breathing life. The hair
is thin and failing, the forehead broad, the face shrivelled, the throat
lank, the arms loose and hanging, the breast shrunken, and the belly
fallen in, as the whole turn and air of the figure behind too is equally
expressive of old age. It appears to be true antique, judging from the
colour of the brass. In short, it is such a masterpiece as would
strike the eyes of a connoisseur, and which cannot fail to charm an
ordinary observer: and this induced me, who am an absolute novice
in this art, to buy it. But I did so, not with any intention of placing
it in my own house (for I have nothing of the kind there), but with
a design of fixing it in some conspicuous place in my native province;
I should like it best in the temple of Jupiter, for it is a gift well
worthy of a temple, well worthy of a god. I desire therefore you
would, with that care with which you always perform my requests,
undertake this commission and give immediate orders for a pedestal
to be made for it, out of what marble you please, but let my name be
engraved upon it, and, if you think proper to add these as well, my
titles. I will send the statue by the first person I can find who will
not mind the trouble of it; or possibly (which I am sure you will like
better) I may myself bring it along with me: for I intend, if business
can spare me, that is to say, to make an excursion over to you. I see
joy in your looks when I promise to come; but you will soon change
your countenance when I add, only for a few days: for the same

236 PLINY

business that at present keeps me here will prevent my making a
longer stay. Farewell.

XXIX
To CANINIUS RUFUS

I HAVE just been informed that Silius Italicus l has starved himself
to death, at his villa near Naples. Ill health was the cause. Being
troubled with an incurable cancerous humour, he grew weary of life
and therefore put an end to it with a determination not to be moved.
He had been extremely fortunate all through his life with the excep-
tion of the death of the younger of his two sons; however, he has
left behind him the elder and the worthier man of the two in a
position of distinction, having even attained consular rank. His repu-
tation had suffered a little in Nero's time, as he was suspected of
having officiously joined in some of the informations in that reign;
but he used his interest with Vitellius, with great discretion and
humanity. He acquired considerable honour by his administration
of the government of Asia, and, by his good conduct after his retire-
ment from business, cleared his character from that stain which his
former public exertions had thrown upon it. He lived as a private
nobleman, without power, and consequently without envy. Though
he was frequently confined to his bed, and always to his room, yet he
was highly respected, and much visited; not with an interested view,
but on his own account. He employed his time between conversing
with literary men and composing verses; which he sometimes read
out, by way of testing the public opinion: but they evidence more
industry than genius. In the decline of his years he entirely quitted
Rome, and lived altogether in Campania, from whence even the
accession of the new emperor z could not draw him. A circumstance
which I mention as much to the honour of Caesar, who was not
displeased with that liberty, as of Italicus, who was not afraid to make
use of it. He was reproached with indulging his taste for the fine arts

1 Born about A.D. 25. He acquired some distinction as an advocate. The only
poem of his which has come down to us is a heavy prosaic performance in seventeen
books, entitled "Tunica," and containing an account of the events of the Second
Punic War, from the capture of Saguntum to the triumph of Scipio Africanus. See
Smith's Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Biog. 2 Trajan.

LETTERS 237

at an immoderate expense. He had several villas in the same
province, and the last purchase was always the especial favourite, to
the neglect of all the rest. These residences overflowed with books,
statues, and pictures, which he more than enjoyed, he even adored;
particularly that of Virgil, of whom he was so passionate an admirer
that he celebrated the anniversary of that poet's birthday with more
solemnity than his own, at Naples especially, where he used to
approach his tomb as if it had been a temple. In this tranquillity he
passed his seventy-fifth year, with a delicate rather than an infirm
constitution. As he was the last person upon whom Nero conferred
the consular office, so he was the last survivor of all those who had
been raised by him to that dignity. It is also remarkable that, as he
was the last to die of Nero's consuls, so Nero died when he was
consul. Recollecting this, a feeling of pity for the transitory condition
of mankind comes over me. Is there anything in nature so short and
limited as human life, even at its longest? Does it not seem to you
but yesterday that Nero was alive? And yet not one of all those
who were consuls in his reign now remains! Though why should
I wonder at this? Lucius Piso (the father of that Piso who was so
infamously assassinated by Valerius Festus in Africa) used to say,
he did not see one person in the senate whose opinion he had con-
sulted when he was consul: in so short a space is the very term of
life of such a multitude of beings comprised! so that to me those
royal tears seem not only worthy of pardon but of praise. For it is
said that Xerxes, on surveying his immense army, wept at the reflec-
tion that so many thousand lives would in such a short space of time
be extinct. The more ardent therefore should be our zeal to lengthen
out this frail and transient portion of existence, if not by our deeds
(for the opportunities of this are not in our power), yet certainly
by our literary accomplishments; and since long life is denied us, let
us transmit to posterity some memorial that we have at least LIVED.
I well know you need no incitements, but the warmth of my
affection for you inclines me to urge you on in the course you are
already pursuing, just as you have so often urged me. "Happy
rivalry" when two friends strive in this way which of them shall
animate the other most in their mutual pursuit of immortal fame.
Farewell.

238 PLINY

XXX

To SPURINNA AND COTTIA '

I DID not tell you, when I paid you my last visit, that I had com-
posed something in praise of your son; because, in the first place, I
wrote it not for the sake of talking about my performance, but
simply to satisfy my affection, to console my sorrow for the loss of
him. Again, as you told me, my dear Spurinna, that you had heard
I had been reciting a piece of mine, I imagined you had also heard
at the same time what was the subject of the recital, and besides I
was afraid of casting a gloom over your cheerfulness in that festive
season, by reviving the remembrance of that heavy sorrow. And
even now I have hesitated a little whether I should gratify you both,
in your joint request, by sending only what I recited, or add to it
what I arn thinking of keeping back for another essay. It does not
satisfy my feelings to devote only one little tract to a memory so dear
and sacred to me, and it seemed also more to the interest of his fame
to have it thus disseminated by separate pieces. But the considera-
tion that it will be more open and friendly to send you the whole
now, rather than keep back some of it to another time, has
determined me to do the former, especially as I have your promise
that it shall not be communicated by either of you to anyone else,
until I shall think proper to publish it. The only remaining favour I
ask is, that you will give me a proof of the same unreserve by point-
ing out to me what you shall judge would be best altered, omitted,
or added. It is difficult for a mind in affliction to concentrate itself
upon such little cares. However, as you would direct a painter or
sculptor who was representing the figure of your son what parts he
should retouch or express, so I hope you will guide and inform my
hand in this more durable or (as you are pleased to think it) this
immortal likeness which I am endeavouring to execute: for the
truer to the original, the more perfect and finished it is, so much
the more lasting it is likely to prove. Farewell.

1 Spurinna's wife.

LETTERS 239

XXXI
To JULIUS GENITOR

IT is just like the generous disposition of Artemidorus to magnify
the kindnesses of his friends; hence he praises my deserts (though he
is really indebted to me) beyond their due. It is true indeed that
when the philosophers were expelled from Rome, 1 I visited him at
his house near the city, and ran the greater risk in paying him that
civility, as it was more noticeable then, I being prastor at the time. I
supplied him too with a considerable sum to pay certain debts he
had contracted upon very honourable occasions, without charging
interest, though obliged to borrow the money myself, while the rest
of his rich, powerful friends stood by, hesitating about giving him
assistance. I did this at a time when seven of my friends were either
executed or banished; Senecio, Rusticus, and Helvidius having just
been put to death, while Mauricus, Gratilla, Arria, and Fannia were
sent into exile; and scorched, as it were, by so many lightning-bolts
of the state thus hurled and flashing round me, I augured by no
uncertain tokens my own impending doom. But I do not look upon
myself, on that account, as deserving of the high praises my friend
bestows upon me: all I pretend to is the being clear of the infamous
guilt of abandoning him in his misfortunes. I had, as far as the
differences between our ages would admit, a friendship for his
father-in-law, Musonius, whom I both loved and esteemed, while
Artemidorus himself I entered into the closest intimacy with when
I was serving as a military tribune in Syria. And I consider as a
proof that there is some good in me the fact of my being so early
capable of appreciating a man who is either a philosopher or the
nearest resemblance to one possible; for I am sure that, amongst all
those who at the present day call themselves philosophers, you will
find hardly any one of them so full of sincerity and truth as he. I
forbear to mention how patient he is of heat and cold alike, how
indefatigable in labour, how abstemious in his food, and what an
absolute restraint he puts upon all his appetites; for these qualities,

1 Domitian banished the philosophers not only from Rome, but Italy, as Suetonius
(Dom. c. x.) and Aulus Gellius (Noct. Att b. xv., cxi. 3, 4, 5) inform us; among
these was the celebrated Epictetus. M.

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considerable as they would certainly be in any other character, are
less noticeable by the side of the rest of those virtues of his which
recommended him to Musonius for a son-in-law, in preference to
so many others of all ranks who paid their addresses to his daughter.
And when I think of all these things, I cannot help feeling pleasur-
ably affected by those unqualified terms of praise in which he
speaks of me to you as well as to everyone else. I am only apprehen-
sive lest the warmth of his kind feeling carry him beyond the due
limits; for he, who is so free from all other errors, is apt to fall into
just this one good-natured one, of overrating the merits of his friends.
Farewell.

XXXII
To CATILIUS SEVERUS

I WILL come to supper, but must make this agreement beforehand,
that I go when I please, that you treat me to nothing expensive, and
that our conversation abound only in Socratic discourse, while even
that in moderation. There are certain necessary visits of ceremony,
bringing people out before daylight, which Cato himself could not
safely fall in with; though I must confess that Julius Caesar re-
proaches him with that circumstance in such a manner as redounds
to his praise: for he tells us that the persons who met him reeling
home blushed at the discovery, and adds, "You would have thought
that Cato had detected them, and not they Cato." Could he place the
dignity of Cato in a stronger light than by representing him thus
venerable even in his cups? But let our supper be as moderate in
regard to hours as in the preparation and expense: for we are not
of such eminent reputation that even our enemies cannot censure
our conduct without applauding it at the same time. Farewell.

XXXIII
To ACILIUS

THE atrocious treatment that Largius Macedo, a man of praetorian
rank, lately received at the hands of his slaves is so extremely tragical
that it deserves a place rather in public history than in a private letter;

LETTERS 241

though it must at the same time be acknowledged there was a
haughtiness and severity in his behaviour towards them which
shewed that he little remembered, indeed almost entirely forgot, the
fact that his own father had once been in that station of life. He
was bathing at his Formian Villa, when he found himself suddenly
surrounded by his slaves; one seizes him by the throat, another strikes
him on the mouth, whilst others trampled upon his breast, stomach,
and even other parts which I need not mention. When they thought
the breath must be quite out of his body, they threw him down upon
the heated pavement of the bath, to try whether he were still alive,
where he lay outstretched and motionless, either really insensible
or only feigning to be so, upon which they concluded him to be
actually dead. In this condition they brought him out, pretending
that he had got suffocated by the heat of the bath. Some of his more
trusty servants received him, and his mistresses came about him
shrieking and lamenting. The noise of their cries and the fresh
air, together, brought him a little to himself; he opened his eyes,
moved his body, and shewed them (as he now safely might) that he
was not quite dead. The murderers immediately made their escape;
but most of them have been caught again, and they are after the rest.
He was with great difficulty kept alive for a few days, and then
expired, having, however, the satisfaction of finding himself as
amply revenged in his lifetime as he would have been after his death.
Thus you see to what affronts, indignities, and dangers we are
exposed. Lenity and kind treatment are no safeguard; for it is malice
and not reflection that arms such ruffians against their masters. So
much for this piece of news. And what else? What else? Nothing
else, or you should hear it, for I have still paper, and time too (as it is
holiday time with me) to spare for more, and I can tell you one
further circumstance relating to Macedo, which now occurs to me.
As he was in a public bath once, at Rome, a remarkable, and (judg-
ing from the manner of his death) an ominous, accident happened to
him. A slave of his, in order to make way for his master, laid his
hand gently upon a Roman knight, who, turning suddenly round,
struck, not the slave who had touched him, but Macedo, so violent
a blow with his open palm that he almost knocked him down. Thus
the bath by a kind of gradation proved fatal to him; being first the

242 PLINY

scene of an indignity he suffered, afterwards the scene of his death.
Farewell.

XXXIV
To NEPOS

I HAVE constantly observed that amongst the deeds and sayings
of illustrious persons of either sex, some have made more noise in the
world, whilst others have been really greater, although less talked
about; and I am confirmed in this opinion by a conversation I had
yesterday with Fannia. This lady is a granddaughter to that cele-
brated Arria who animated her husband to meet death, by her own
glorious example. She informed me of several particulars relating
to Arria, no less heroic than this applauded action of hers, though
taken less notice of, and I think you will be as surprised to read the
account of them as I was to hear it. Her husband, Caecinna Paetus,
and her son, were both attacked at the same time with a fatal
illness, as was supposed; of which the son died, a youth of remark-
able beauty, and as modest as he was comely, endeared indeed to his
parents no less by his many graces than from the fact of his being
their son. His mother prepared his funeral and conducted the usual
ceremonies so privately that Pastus did not know of his death.
Whenever she came into his room, she pretended her son was alive
and actually better: and as often as he enquired after his health,
would answer, "He has had a good rest, and eaten his food with
quite an appetite." Then when she found the tears she had so long
kept back, gushing forth in spite of herself, she would leave the
room, and having given vent to her grief, return with dry eyes and a
serene countenance, as though she had dismissed every feeling of
bereavement at the door of her husband's chamber. I must confess
it was a brave action l in her to draw the steel, plunge it into her
breast, pluck out the dagger, and present it to her husband with that

1 The following is the story, as related by several of the ancient historians: Pitus,
having joined Scribonianus, who was in arms, in Illyria, against Claudius, was taken
after the death of Scribonianus, and condemned to death. Arria, having, in vain,
solicited his life, persuaded him to destroy himself, rather than suffer the ignominy
of falling by the executioner's hands; and, in order to encourage him to an act,
to which, it seems, he was not particularly inclined, she set him the example in the
manner Pliny relates. M.

LETTERS 243

ever memorable, I had almost said that divine, expression, "Pztus, it
is not painful." But when she spoke and acted thus, she had the
prospect of glory and immortality before her; how far greater, with-
out the support of any such animating motives, to hide her tears,
to conceal her grief, and cheerfully to act the mother, when a mother
no more!

Scribonianus had taken up arms in Illyria against Claudius, where
he lost his life, and Pastus, who was of his party, was brought a
prisoner to Rome. When they were going to put him on board ship,
Arria besought the soldiers that she might be permitted to attend
him: "For surely," she urged, "you will allow a man of consular
rank some servants to dress him, attend to him at meals, and put his
shoes on for him; but if you will take me, I alone will perform all
these offices." Her request was refused; upon which she hired a
fishing-boat, and in that small vessel followed the ship. On her return
to Rome, meeting the wife of Scribonianus in the emperor's palace,
at the time when this woman voluntarily gave evidence against the
conspirators "What," she exclaimed, "shall I hear you even speak
to me, you, on whose bosom your husband, Scribonianus, was
murdered, and yet you survive him?" an expression which plainly
shews that the noble manner in which she put an end to her life was
no unpremeditated effect of sudden passion. Moreover, when
Thrasea, her son-in-law, was endeavouring to dissuade her from her
purpose of destroying herself, and, amongst other arguments which
he used, said to her, "Would you then advise your daughter to die
with me if my life were to be taken from me?" "Most certainly I
would," she replied, "if she had lived as long, and in as much
harmony with you, as I have with my Pztus." This answer greatly
increased the alarm of her family, and made them watch her for the
future more narrowly; which when she perceived, "It is of no use,"
she said, "you may oblige me to effect my death in a more painful
way, but it is impossible you should prevent it." Saying this, she
sprang from her chair, and running her head with the utmost
violence against the wall, fell down, to all appearance, dead; but
being brought to herself again, "I told you," she said, "if you would
not suffer me to take an easy path to death, I should find a way to
it, however hard." Now, is there not, my friend, something much

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greater in all this than in the so-much-talked-of "Psetus, it is not
painful," to which these led the way? And yet this last is the
favourite topic of fame, while all the former are passed over in
silence. Whence I cannot but infer, what I observed at the beginning
of my letter, that some actions are more celebrated, whilst others are
really greater.

XXXV
To SEVERUS

I WAS obliged by my consular office to compliment the emperor 1
in the name of the republic; but after I had performed that ceremony
in the senate in the usual manner, and as fully as the time and
place would allow, I thought it agreeable to the affection of a good
subject to enlarge those general heads, and expand them into a
complete discourse. My principal object in doing so was, to confirm
the emperor in his virtues, by paying them that tribute of applause
which they so justly deserve; and at the same time to direct future
princes, not in the formal way of lecture, but by his more engaging
example, to those paths they must pursue if they would attain the
same heights of glory. To instruct princes how to form their conduct,
is a noble but difficult task, and may, perhaps, be esteemed an act of
presumption: but to applaud the character of an accomplished
prince, and to hold out to posterity, by this means, a beacon-light,
as it were, to guide succeeding monarchs, is a method equally useful,
and much more modest. It afforded me a very singular pleasure
that when I wished to recite this panegyric in a private assembly,
my friends gave me their company, though I did not solicit them
in the usual form of notes or circulars, but only desired their attend-
ance, "should it be quite convenient to them," and "if they should
happen to have no other engagement." You know the excuses
generally made at Rome to avoid invitations of this kind; how
prior invitations are usually alleged; yet, in spite of the worst possible
weather, they attended the recital for two days together; and when
I thought it would be unreasonable to detain them any longer, they
insisted upon my going through with it the next day. Shall I

1 Traian.

LETTERS 245

consider this as an honour done to myself or to literature? Rather
let me suppose to the latter, which, though well-nigh extinct, seems
to be now again reviving amongst us. Yet what was the subject
which raised this uncommon attention? No other than what
formerly, even in the senate, where we had to submit to it, we used
to grudge even a few moments' attention to. But now, you see, we
have patience to recite and to attend to the same topic for three
days together; and the reason of this is, not that we have more
eloquent writing now than formerly, but we write under a fuller
sense of individual freedom, and consequently more genially than
we used to. It is an additional glory therefore to our present emperor
that this sort of harangue, which was once as disgusting as it was
false, is now as pleasing as it is sincere. But it was not only the
earnest attention of my audience which afforded me pleasure; I was
greatly delighted too with the justness of their taste: for I observed
that the more nervous parts of my discourse gave them peculiar
satisfaction. It is true, indeed, this work, which was written for
the perusal of the world in general, was read only to a few; however,
I would willingly look upon their particular judgment as an earnest
of that of the public, and rejoice at their manly taste as if it were
universally spread. It was just the same in eloquence as it was in
music, the vitiated ears of the audience introduced a depraved style;
but now, I am inclined to hope, as a more refined judgment prevails
in the public, our compositions of both kinds will improve too;
for those authors whose sole object is to please will fashion their
works according to the popular taste. I trust, however, in subjects
of this nature the florid style is most proper; and am so far from
thinking that the vivid colouring I have used will be esteemed
foreign and unnatural that I am most apprehensive that censure
will fall upon those parts where the diction is most simple and
unornate. Nevertheless, I sincerely wish the time may come, and
that it now were, when the smooth and luscious, which has affected
our style, shall give place, as it ought, to severe and chaste composi-
tion. Thus have I given you an account of my doings of these last
three days, that your absence might not entirely deprive you of a
pleasure which, from your friendship to me, and the part you take

246 PLINY

in everything that concerns the interest of literature, I know you
would have received, had you been there to hear. Farewell.

XXXVI

To CALVISIUS RUFUS

I MUST have recourse to you, as usual, in an affair which concerns
my finances. An estate adjoining my land, and indeed running into
it, is for sale. There are several considerations strongly inclining
me to this purchase, while there are others no less weighty deterring
me from it. Its first recommendation is, the beauty which will result
from uniting this farm to my own lands; next, the advantage as
well as pleasure of being able to visit it without additional trouble
and expense; to have it superintended by the same steward, and
almost by the same subagents, and to have one villa to support and
embellish, the other just to keep in common repair. I take into this
account furniture, housekeepers, fancy-gardeners, artificers, and even
hunting-apparatus, as it makes a very great difference whether you
get these altogether into one place or scatter them about in several.
On the other hand, I don't know whether it is prudent to expose
so large a property to the same climate, and the same risks of accident
happening; to distribute one's possessions about seems a safer way of
meeting the caprice of fortune, besides, there is something extremely
pleasant in the change of air and place, and the going about between
one's properties. And now, to come to the chief consideration: the
lands are rich, fertile, and well watered, consisting chiefly of meadow-
ground, vineyard, and wood, while the supply of building-timber
and its returns, though moderate, still, keep at the same rate. But
the soil, fertile as it is, has been much impoverished by not having
been properly looked after. The person last in possession used
frequently to seize and sell the stock, by which means, although
he lessened his tenants' arrears for the time being, yet he left them
nothing to go on with and the arrears ran up again in consequence.
I shall be obliged, then, to provide them with slaves, which I must
buy, and at a higher than the usual price, as these will be good
ones; for I keep no fettered slaves 1 myself, and there are none upon

1 The Romans used to employ their criminals in the lower offices of husbandry,
such as ploughing, &c. Plin. H. N. i. 18, 3. M.

LETTERS 247

the estate. For the rest, the price, you must know, is three millions
of sesterces. 2 It has formerly gone for five millions, but owing partly
to the general hardness of the times, and partly to its being thus
stripped of tenants, the income of this estate is reduced, and con-
sequently its value. You will be inclined perhaps to enquire whether
I can easily raise the purchase-money? My estate, it is true, is
almost entirely in land, though I have some money out at interest;
but I shall find no difficulty in borrowing any sum I may want.
I can get it from my wife's mother, whose purse I may use with
the same freedom as my own; so that you need not trouble yourself
at all upon that point, should you have no other objections, which
I should like you very carefully to consider: for, as in everything
else, so, particularly in matters of economy, no man has more judg-
ment and experience than yourself. Farewell.

XXXVII
To CORNELIUS PRISCUS

1 HAVE just heard of Valerius Martial's death, which gives me
great concern. He was a man of an acute and lively genius, and
his writings abound in equal wit, satire, and kindliness. On his
leaving Rome I made him a present to defray his travelling expenses,
which I gave him, not only as a testimony of friendship, but also in
return for the verses with which he had complimented me. It was
the custom of the ancients to distinguish those poets with, honours
or pecuniary rewards, who had celebrated particular individuals or
cities in their verses; but this good custom, along with every other
fair and noble one, has grown out of fashion now; and in con-
sequence of our having ceased to act laudably, we consider praise
a folly and impertinence. You may perhaps be curious to see the
verses which merited this acknowledgment from me, and I believe
I can, from memory, partly satisfy your curiosity, without referring
you to his works: but if you should be pleased with this specimen
of them, you must turn to his poems for the rest. He addresses
himself to his muse, whom he directs to go to my house upon the
Esquilia?, 3 but to approach it with respect.

2 About $100,000.

3 One of the famous seven hills upon which Rome was situated. M.

248 PLINY

"Go, wanton muse, but go with care,
Nor meet, ill-tim'd, my Pliny's ear;
He, by sage Minerva taught,
Gives the day to studious thought,
And plans that eloquence divine,
Which shall to future ages shine,
And rival, wondrous Tully! thine.
Then, cautious, watch the vacant hour,
When Bacchus reigns in all his pow'r;
When, crowned with rosy chaplets gay,
Catos might read my frolic lay." 4

Do you not think that the poet who wrote of me in such terms
deserved some friendly marks of my bounty then, and of my
sorrow now? For he gave me the very best he had to bestow, and
would have given more had it been in his power. Though indeed
what can a man have conferred on him more valuable than the
honour of never-fading praise ? But his poems will not long survive
their author, at least I think not, though he wrote them in the expecta-
tion of their doing so. Farewell.

XXXVIII
To FABATUS (His WIFE'S GRANDFATHER)

You have long desired a visit from your granddaughter 5 accom-
panied by me. Nothing, be assured, could be more agreeable to
either of us; for we equally wish to see you, and are determined
to delay that pleasure no longer. For this purpose we are already
packing up, and hastening to you with all the speed the roads will
permit of. We shall make only one short stoppage, for we intend
turning a little out of our way to go into Tuscany: not for the sake
of looking upon our estate, and into our family concerns, which we
can postpone to another opportunity, but to perform an indispensable
duty. There is a town near my estate, called Tifernum-upon-the-
Tiber, 6 which, with more affection than wisdom, put itself under
my patronage when I was yet a youth. These people celebrate my
arrival among them, express the greatest concern when I leave them,

4 Mart. Ix. 19.
5 Calpurnia, Pliny's wife. 6 Now Citta di Castello.

LETTERS 249

and have public rejoicings whenever they hear of my preferments.
By way of requiting their kindnesses (for what generous mind can
bear to be excelled in acts of friendship?) I have built a temple in
this place, at my own expense, and as it is finished, it would be a sort
of impiety to put off its dedication any longer. So we shall be there
on the day on which that ceremony is to be performed, and I have
resolved to celebrate it with a general feast. We may possibly stay
on there for all the next day, but shall make so much the greater haste
in our journey afterwards. May we have the happiness to find you
and your daughter in good health! In good spirits I am sure we
shall, should we get to you all safely. Farewell.

XXXIX

To ATTIUS CLEMENS

REGULUS has lost his son; the only undeserved misfortune which
could have befallen him, in that I doubt whether he thinks it a
misfortune. The boy had quick parts, but there was no telling how
he might turn out; however, he seemed capable enough of going
right, were he not to grow up like his father. Regulus gave him
his freedom, 1 in order to entitle him to the estate left him by his
mother; and when he got into possession of it (I speak of the
current rumours, based upon the character of the man), fawned
upon the lad with a disgusting shew of fond affection which in a
parent was utterly out of place. You may hardly think this credible;
but then consider what Regulus is. However, he now expresses his
concern for the loss of this youth in a most extravagant manner.
The boy had a number of ponies for riding and driving, dogs both
big and little, together with nightingales, parrots, and blackbirds in
abundance. All these Regulus slew round the funeral pile. It was
not grief, but an ostentatious parade of grief. He is visited upon
this occasion by a surprising number of people, who all hate and
detest the man, and yet are as assiduous in their attendance upon
him as if they really esteemed and loved him, and, to give you my
opinion in a word, in endeavouring to do Regulus a kindness, make

1 The Romans had an absolute power over their children, of which no age or
station of the latter deprived them.

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themselves exactly like him. He keeps himself in his park on the
other side the Tiber, where he has covered a vast extent of ground
with his porticoes, and crowded all the shore with his statues; for
he unites prodigality with excessive covetousness, and vainglory with
the height of infamy. At this very unhealthy time of year he is
boring society, and he feels pleasure and consolation in being a
bore. He says he wishes to marry, a piece of perversity, like all
his other conduct. You must expect, therefore, to hear shortly of
the marriage of this mourner, the marriage of this old man; too early
in the former case, in the latter, too late. You ask me why I con-
jecture this? Certainly not because he says so himself (for a greater
liar never stepped), but because there is no doubt that Regulus will
do whatever ought not to be done. Farewell.

XL
To CATIUS LEPIDUS

I OFTEN tell you that there is a certain force of character about
Regulus: it is wonderful how he carries through what he has set
his mind to. He chose lately to be extremely concerned for the loss
of his son: accordingly he mourned for him as never man mourned
before. He took it into his head to have an immense number of
statues and pictures of him; immediately all the artisans in Rome
are set to work. Canvas, wax, brass, silver, gold, ivory, marble, all
exhibit the figure of the young Regulus. Not long ago he read,
before a numerous audience, a memoir of his son: a memoir of a
mere boy! However, he read it. He wrote likewise a sort of circular
letter to the several Decurii, desiring them to choose out one of
their order who had a strong, clear voice, to read this eulogy to the
people; it has been actually done. Now had this force of character,
or whatever else you may call a fixed determination in obtaining
whatever one has a mind for, been rightly applied, what infinite
good it might have effected! The misfortune is, there is less of this
quality about good people than about bad people, and as ignorance
begets rashness, and thoughtfulness produces deliberation, so modesty
is apt to cripple the action of virtue, whilst confidence strengthens
vice. Regulus is a case in point: he has a weak voice, an awkward

LETTERS 251

delivery, an indistinct utterance, a slow imagination, and no memory;
in a word, he possesses nothing but a sort of frantic energy: and yet,
by the assistance of a flighty turn and much impudence, he passes
as an orator. Herennius Senecio admirably reversed Cato's definition
of an orator, and applied it to Regulus: "An orator," he said, "is
a bad man, unskilled in the art of speaking." And really Cato's
definition is not a more exact description of a true orator than
Senecio's is of the character of this man. Would you make me a
suitable return for this letter? Let me know if you, or any of my
friends in your town, have, like a stroller in the market-place, read
this doleful production of Regulus's, "raising," as Demosthenes says,
"your voice most merrily, and straining every muscle in your throat."
For so absurd a performance must excite laughter rather than com-
passion; and indeed the composition is as puerile as the subject.
Farewell.

XLI

To MATURUS ARRIANUS

MY advancement to the dignity of augur 1 is an honour that justly
indeed merits your congratulations; not only because it is highly
honourable to receive, even in the slightest instances, a testimony of
the approbation of so wise and discreet a prince, 2 but because it
is, moreover, an ancient and religious institution, which has this
sacred and peculiar privilege annexed to it, that it is for life. Other
sacerdotal offices, though they may, perhaps, be almost equal to this
one in dignity, yet, as they are given, so they may be taken away
again : but fortune has no further power over this than to bestow it.
What recommends this dignity still more highly is, that I have the
honour to succeed so illustrious a person as Julius Frontinus. He
for many years, upon the nomination-day of proper persons to be
received into the sacred college, constantly proposed me, as though
he had a view to electing me as his successor; and since it actually

1 Their business was to interpret dreams, oracles, prodigies, &c., and to foretell
whether any action should be fortunate or prejudicial to particular persons, or to the
whole commonwealth. Upon this account, they very often occasioned the displacing
of magistrates, the deferring of public assemblies, &c. Rennet's Rom. Antiq. M.

2 Trajan.

252 PLINY

proved so in the event, I am willing to look upon it as something
more than mere accident. But the circumstance, it seems, that most
pleases you in this affair, is, that Cicero enjoyed the same post; and
you rejoice (you tell me) to find that I follow his steps as closely
in the path of honours as I endeavour to do in that of eloquence. I
wish, indeed, that as I had the advantage of being admitted earlier
into the same order of priesthood, and into the consular office, than
Cicero, so I might, in my later years, catch some spark, at least, of
his divine genius! The former, indeed, being at man's disposal, may
be conferred on me and on many others, but the latter it is as
presumptuous to hope for as it is difficult to reach, being in the gift
of heaven alone. Farewell.

XLII
To STATIUS SABINUS

YOUR letter informs me that Sabina, who appointed you and me
her heirs, though she has nowhere expressly directed that Modestus
shall have his freedom, yet has left him a legacy in the following
words: "I give, &c. To Modestus, whom I have ordered to have
his freedom": upon which you desire my opinion. I have consulted
skilful lawyers upon the point, and they all agree Modestus is not
entitled to his liberty, since it is not expressly given, and consequently
that the legacy is void, as being bequeathed to a slave. 1 But it
evidently appears to be a mistake in the testatrix; and therefore I
think we ought to act in this case as though Sabina had directed, in
so many words, what, it is clear, she had ordered. I am persuaded
you will go with me in this opinion, who so religiously regard the
will of the deceased, which indeed where it can be discovered will
always be law to honest heirs. Honour is to you and me as strong
an obligation as the compulsion of law is to others. Let Modestus
then enjoy his freedom and his legacy as fully as if Sabina had
observed all the requisite forms, as indeed they effectually do who
make a judicious choice of their heirs. Farewell.

1 A slave was incapable of property; and, therefore, whatever he acquired became
the right of his master. M.

LETTERS 253

XLIII
To CORNELIUS MINICIANUS

HAVE you heard I suppose, not yet, for the news has but just
arrived that Valerius Licinianus has become a professor in Sicily?
This unfortunate person, who lately enjoyed the dignity of praetor,
and was esteemed the most eloquent of our advocates, is now fallen
from a senator to an exile, from an orator to a teacher of rhetoric.
Accordingly in his inaugural speech he uttered, sorrowfully and
solemnly, the following words: "O Fortune, how capriciously dost
thou sport with mankind! Thou makest rhetoricians of senators,
and senators of rhetoricians!" A sarcasm so poignant and full of
gall that one might almost imagine he fixed upon this profession
merely for the sake of an opportunity of applying it. And having
made his first appearance in school, clad in the Greek cloak (for
exiles have no right to wear the toga), after arranging himself and
looking down upon his attire, "I am, however," he said, "going to
declaim in Latin." You will think, perhaps, this situation, wretched
and deplorable as it is, is what he well deserves for having stained
the honourable profession of an orator with the crime of incest.
It is true, indeed, he pleaded guilty to the charge; but whether from
a consciousness of his guilt, or from an apprehension of worse
consequences if he denied it, is not clear; for Domitian generally
raged most furiously where his evidence failed him most hopelessly.
That emperor had determined that Cornelia, chief of the Vestal
Virgins, 1 should be buried alive, from an extravagant notion that
exemplary severities of this kind conferred lustre upon his reign.

1 "Their office was to attend upon the rites of Vesta, the chief part of which was the
preservation of the holy fire. If this fire happened to go out, it was considered impiety
to light it at any common flame, but they made use of the pure and unpolluted rays
of the sun for that purpose. There were various other duties besides connected
with their office. The chief rules prescribed them were, to vow the strictest chastity
for the space of thirty years. After this term was completed, they had liberty to leave
the order. If they broke their vow of virginity, they were buried alive in a place
allotted to that peculiar use." Rennet's Antiq. Their reputation for sanctity was so
high that Livy mentions the fact of two of those virgins having violated their vows,
as a prodigy that threatened destruction to the Roman state. Lib. xxii., c. 57. And
Suetonius informs us that Augustus had so high an opinion of this religious order
that he consigned the care of his will to the Vestal Virgins. Suet, in Vit. Aug.
c. 101. M.

254 PLINY

Accordingly, by virtue of his office as supreme pontiff, or, rather,
in the exercise of a tyrant's cruelty, a despot's lawlessness, he con-
vened the sacred college, not in the pontifical court where they
usually assemble, but at his villa near Alba; and there, with a guilt
no less heinous than that which he professed to be punishing, he
condemned her, when she was not present to defend herself, on
the charge of incest, while he himself had been guilty, not only of
debauching his own brother's daughter, but was also accessory to
her death: for that lady, being a widow, in order to conceal her
shame, endeavoured to procure an abortion, and by that means lost
her life. However, the priests were directed to see the sentence
immediately executed upon Cornelia. As they were leading her
to the place of execution, she called upon Vesta, and the rest of
the gods, to attest her innocence; and, amongst other exclamations,
frequently cried out, "Is it possible that Caesar can think me polluted,
under the influence of whose sacred functions he has conquered
and triumphed?" 2 Whether she said this in flattery or derision;
whether it proceeded from a consciousness of her innocence, or
contempt of the emperor, is uncertain; but she continued exclaiming
in this manner, till she came to the place of execution, to which
she was led, whether innocent or guilty I cannot say, at all events
with every appearance and demonstration of innocence. As she was
being lowered down into the subterranean vault, her robe happening
to catch upon something in the descent, she turned round and
disengaged it, when, the executioner offering his assistance, she
drew herself back with horror, refusing to be so much as touched
by him, as though it were a defilement to her pure and unspotted
chastity: still preserving the appearance of sanctity up to the last
moment; and, among all the other instances of her modesty,

"She took great care to fall with decency." 3

Celer likewise, a Roman knight, who was accused of an intrigue
with her, while they were scourging him with rods 4 in the Forum,
persisted in exclaiming, "What have I done? I have done nothing."

2 It was usual with Domitian to triumph, not only without a victory, but even after
a defeat. A/. 3 Euripides' Hecuba.

4 The punishment inflicted upon the violators of Vestal chastity was to be scourged
to death. M.

LETTERS 255

These declarations of innocence had exasperated Domitian exceed-
ingly, as imputing to him acts of cruelty and injustice; accordingly
Licinianus, being seized by the emperor's orders for having concealed
a freedwoman of Cornelia's in one of his estates, was advised, by
those who took him in charge, to confess the fact, if he hoped to
obtain a remission of his punishment, and he complied with their
advice. Herennius Senecio spoke for him in his absence, in some
such words as Homer's

"Patroclus lies in death."

"Instead of an advocate," said he, "I must turn informer: Licinianus
has fled." This news was so agreeable to Domitian that he could
not help betraying his satisfaction: "Then," he exclaimed, "has
Licinianus acquitted us of injustice"; adding that he would not
press too hard upon him in his disgrace. He accordingly allowed
him to carry off such of his effects as he could secure before they
were seized for the public use, and in other respects softened the
sentence of banishment by way of reward for his voluntary confes-
sion. Licinianus was afterwards, through the clemency of the em-
peror Nerva, permitted to settle in Sicily, where he now professes
rhetoric, and avenges himself upon Fortune in his declamations.
You see how obedient I am to your commands, in sending you a
circumstantial detail of foreign as well as domestic news. I imagined
indeed, as you were absent when this transaction occurred, that you
had only heard just in a general way that Licinianus was banished
for incest, as Fame usually makes her report in general terms,
without going into particulars. I think I deserve in return a full
account of all that is going on in your town and neighbourhood,
where something worth telling about is usually happening; however,
write what you please, provided you send me as long a letter as
my own. I give you notice, I shall count not only the pages, but
even the very lines and syllables. Farewell.

XLIV
To VALERIUS PAULINUS

REJOICE with me, my friend, not only upon my account, but your
own, and that of the republic as well; for literature is still held

256 PLINY

in honour. Being lately engaged to plead a cause before the Court
of the Hundred, the crowd was so great that I could not get to my
place without crossing the tribunal where the judges sat. And I
have this pleasing circumstance to add further, that a young noble-
man, having had his tunic torn, an ordinary occurrence in a crowd,
stood with his gown thrown over him, to hear me, and that during
the seven hours I was speaking, whilst my success more than counter-
balanced the fatigue of so long a speech. So let us set to and not
screen our own indolence under pretence of that of the public. Never,
be very sure of that, will there be wanting hearers and readers, so
long as we can only supply them with speakers and writers worth
their attention. Farewell.

XLV

To ASINIUS

You advise me, nay you entreat me, to undertake, in her absence,
the cause of Corellia, against C. Caecilius, consul elect. For your
advice I am grateful, of your entreaty I really must complain; with-
out the first, indeed, I should have been ignorant of this affair,
but the last was unnecessary, as I need no solicitations to comply,
where it would be ungenerous in me to refuse; for can I hesitate
a moment to take upon myself the protection of a daughter of
Corellius? It is true, indeed, though there is no particular intimacy
between her adversary and myself, still we are upon good enough
terms. It is also true that he is a person of rank, and one who has
a high claim upon my especial regard, as destined to enter upon an
office which I have had the honour to fill; and it is natural for a
man to be desirous those dignities should be held in the highest
esteem which he himself once possessed. Yet all these considerations
appear indifferent and trifling when I reflect that it is the daughter
of Corellius whom I am to defend. The memory of that excellent
person, than whom this age has not produced a man of greater
dignity, rectitude, and acuteness, is indelibly imprinted upon my
mind. My regard for him sprang from my admiration of the man,
and, contrary to what is usually the case, my admiration increased
upon a thorough knowledge of him, and indeed I did know him

LETTERS 257

thoroughly, for he kept nothing back from me, whether gay or
serious, sad or joyous. When he was but a youth, he esteemed,
and (I will even venture to say) revered, me as if I had been his
equal. When I solicited any post of honour, he supported me with
his interest, and recommended me with his testimony; when I
entered upon it, he was my introducer and my companion; when
I exercised it, he was my guide and my counsellor. In a word,
whenever my interest was concerned, he exerted himself, in spite of:
his weakness and declining years, with as much alacrity as though
he were still young and lusty. In private, in public, and at court,
how often has he advanced and supported my credit and interest!
It happened once that the conversation, in the presence of the
emperor Nerva, turned upon the promising young men of that time,
and several of the company present were pleased to mention me
with applause; he sat for a little while silent, which gave what he
said the greater weight; and then, with that air of dignity, to which
you are no stranger, "I must be reserved," said he, "in my praises of
Pliny, because he does nothing without my advice." By which single
sentence he bestowed upon me more than my most extravagant
wishes could aspire to, as he represented my conduct to be always
such as wisdom must approve, since it was wholly under the direction
of one of the wisest of men. Even in his last moments he said to his
daughter (as she often mentions), "I have in the course of a long
life raised up many friends to you, but there are none in whom
you may more assuredly confide than Pliny and Cornutus." A cir-
cumstance I cannot reflect upon without being deeply sensible how
incumbent it is upon me to endeavour not to disappoint the con-
fidence so excellent a judge of human nature reposed in me. I shall
therefore most readily give my assistance to Corellia in this afTair,
and willingly risk any displeasure I may incur by appearing in her
behalf. Though I should imagine, if in the course of my pleadings
I should find an opportunity to explain and enforce more fully and
at large than the limits of a letter allow of, the reasons I have here
mentioned, upon which I rest at once my apology and my glory;
her adversary (whose suit may perhaps, as you say, be entirely
without precedent, as it is against a woman) will not only excuse,
but approve, my conduct. Farewell.

258 PLINY

XLVI

To HlSPULLA

As you are a model of all virtue, and loved your late excellent
brother, who had such a fondness for you, with an affection equal
to his own; regarding too his daughter 1 as your child, not only
shewing her an aunt's tenderness, but supplying the place of the
parent she had lost; I know it will give you the greatest pleasure
and joy to hear that she proves worthy of her father, her grand-
father, and yourself. She possesses an excellent understanding to-
gether with a consummate prudence, and gives the strongest evidence
of the purity of her heart by her fondness of her husband. Her
affection for me, moreover, has given her a taste for books, and my
productions, which she takes a pleasure in reading, and even in
getting by heart, are continually in her hands. How full of tender
anxiety is she when I am going to speak in any case, how rejoiced
she feels when it is got through! While I am pleading, she stations
persons to inform her from time to time how I am heard, what
applauses I receive, and what success attends the case. When I recite
my works at any time, she conceals herself behind some curtain, and
drinks in my praises with greedy ears. She sings my verses too,
adapting them to her lyre, with no other master but love, that best
of instructors, for her guide. From these happy circumstances I
derive my surest hopes that the harmony between us will increase
with our days, and be as lasting as our lives. For it is not my youth
or person, which time gradually impairs; it is my honour and glory
that she cares for. But what less could be expected from one who
was trained by your hands, and formed by your instructions; who
was early familiarized under your roof with all that is pure and
virtuous, and who learnt to love me first through your praises?
And as you revered my mother with all the respect due even to a
parent, so you kindly directed and encouraged my tender years,
presaging from that early period all that my wife now fondly
imagines I really am. Accept therefore of our mutual thanks, mine
for your giving me her, hers for your giving her me; for you have
chosen us out, as it were, for each other. Farewell.

1 Calpurnia, Pliny's wife.

LETTERS 259

XLVII

To ROMATIUS FlRMUS

LOOK here! The next time the courts sits, you must, at all events,
take your place there. In vain would your indolence repose itself
under my protection, for there is no absenting oneself with impunity.
Look at that severe, determined praetor, Licinius Nepos, who fined
even a senator for the same neglect! The senator pleaded his cause
in person, but in suppliant tone. The fine, it is true, was remitted,
but sore was his dismay, humble his intercession, and he had to
ask pardon. "All praetors are not so severe as that," you will reply;
you are mistaken for though indeed to be the author and reviver
of an example of this kind may be an act of severity, yet, once intro-
duced, even lenity herself may follow the precedent. Farewell.

XLVIII

To LICINIUS SURA

I HAVE brought you as a little present out of the country a query
which well deserves the consideration of your extensive knowledge.
There is a spring which rises in a neighbouring mountain and,
running among the rocks, is received into a little banqueting-room,
artificially formed for that purpose, from whence, after being de-
tained a short time, it falls into the Larian lake. The nature of this
spring is extremely curious; it ebbs and flows regularly three times
a day. The increase and decrease are plainly visible, and exceedingly
interesting to observe. You sit down by the side of the fountain,
and while you are taking a repast and drinking its water, which is
extremely cool, you see it gradually rise and fall. If you place a
ring, or anything else, at the bottom, when it is dry, the water creeps
gradually up, first gently washing, finally covering it entirely, and
then little by little subsides again. If you wait long enough, you
may see it thus alternately advance and recede three successive times.
Shall we say that some secret current of air stops and opens the
fountainhead, first rushing in and checking the flow and then,
driven back by the counter-resistance of the water, escaping again:

260 PLINY

as we see in bottles, and other vessels of that nature, where, there
not being a free and open passage, though you turn their necks
perpendicularly or obliquely downwards, yet, the outward air ob-
structing the vent, they discharge their contents, as it were, by
starts? Or may not this small collection of water be successively
contracted and enlarged upon the same principle as the ebb and
flow of the sea? Or, again, as those rivers which discharge them-
selves into the sea, meeting with contrary winds and the swell of the
ocean, are forced back in their channels, so, in the same way, may
there not be something that checks this fountain, for a time, in its
progress? Or is there rather a certain reservoir that contains these
waters in the bowels of the earth, and while it is recruiting its
discharges, the stream in consequence flows more slowly and in
less quantity, but, when it has collected its due measure, runs on
again in its usual strength and fulness? Or, lastly, is there I know
not what kind of subterranean counterpoise, that throws up the
water when the fountain is dry, and keeps it back when it is full?
You, who are so well qualified for the enquiry, will examine into
the causes of this wonderful phenomenon; it will be sufficient for
me if I have given you an adequate description of it. Farewell.

XLIX
To ANNIUS SEVERUS

A SMALL legacy was lately left me, yet one more acceptable than
a far larger bequest would have been. How more acceptable than
a far larger one? In this way: Pomponia Gratilla, having disinherited
her son Assidius Curianus, appointed me one of her heirs, and
Sertorius Severus, of praetorian rank, together with several eminent
Roman knights, coheirs along with me. The son applied to me to
give him my share of the inheritance, in order to use my name
as an example to the rest of the joint heirs, but offered at the same
time to enter into a secret agreement to return me my proportion. I
told him it was by no means agreeable to my character to seem to
act one way while in reality I was acting another, besides it was not
quite honourable making presents to a man of his fortune, who had
no children; in a word, this would not at all answer the purpose

LETTERS 26l

at which he was aiming, whereas, if I were to withdraw my claim,
it might be of some service to him, and this I was ready and willing to
do, if he could clearly prove to me that he was unjustly disinherited.
"Do then," he said, "be my arbitrator in this case." After a short
pause I answered him, "I will, for I don't see why I should not
have as good an opinion of my own impartial disinterestedness as
you seem to have. But, mind, I am not to be prevailed upon to decide
the point in question against your mother, if it should appear she
had just reason for what she has done." "As you please," he replied,
"which I am sure is always to act according to justice." I called
in, as my assistants, Corellius and Frontinus, two of the very best
lawyers Rome at that time afforded. With these in attendance, I
heard the case in my own chamber. Curianus said everything which
he thought would favour his pretensions, to whom (there being
nobody but myself to defend the character of the deceased) I made
a short reply; after which I retired with my friends to deliberate,
and, being agreed upon our verdict, I said to him, "Curianus, it is
our opinion that your conduct has justly drawn upon you your
mother's displeasure." Some time afterwards, Curianus commenced
a suit in the Court of the Hundred against all the coheirs except
myself. The day appointed for the trial approaching, the rest of
the coheirs were anxious to compromise the affair and have done
with it, not out of any diffidence of their cause, but from a distrust
of the times. They were apprehensive of what had happened to
many others, happening to them, and that from a civil suit it might
end in a criminal one, as there were some among them to whom the
friendship of Gratilla and Rusticus 1 might be extremely prejudicial:
they therefore desired me to go and talk with Curianus. We met
in the temple of Concord; "Now supposing," I said, "your mother
had left you the fourth part of her estate, or even suppose she had
made you sole heir, but had exhausted so much of the estate in
legacies that there would not be more than a fourth part remaining
to you, could you justly complain? You ought to be content, there-
fore, if, being absolutely disinherited as you are, the heirs are willing
to relinquish to you a fourth part, which, however, I will increase

Gratilla was the wife of Rusticus: Rusticus was put to death by Domitian, and
Gratilla banished. It was sufficient crime in the reign of that execrable prince to be
even a friend of those who were obnoxious to him. A/.

PLINY

by contributing my proportion. You know you did not commence
any suit against me, and two years have now elapsed, which gives
me legal and indisputable possession. But to induce you to agree
to the proposals on the part of the other coheirs, and that you may
be no sufferer by the peculiar respect you shew me, I offer to
advance my proportion with them." The silent approval of my own
conscience is not the only result out of this transaction; it has con-
tributed also to the honour of my character. For it is this same
Curianus who has left me the legacy I have mentioned in the be-
ginning of my letter, and I received it as a very notable mark of
his approbation of my conduct, if I do not flatter myself. I have
written and told you all this, because in all my joys and sorrows
I am wont to look upon you as myself, and I thought it would be
unkind not to communicate to so tender a friend whatever occasions
me a sensible gratification; for I am not philosopher enough to be
indifferent, when I think I have acted like an honourable man,
whether my actions meet with that approval which is in some sort
their due. Farewell.

To TITIUS ARISTO

AMONG the many agreeable and obliging instances I have received
of your friendship, your not concealing from me the long conversa-
tion which lately took place at your house concerning my verses,
and the various judgments passed upon them (which served to
prolong the talk), is by no means the least. There were some, it
seems, who did not disapprove of my poems in themselves, but at
the same time censured me in a free and friendly way, for employing
myself in composing and reciting them. I am so far, however,
from desiring to extenuate the charge that I willingly acknowledge
myself still more deserving of it, and confess that I sometimes amuse
myself with writing verses of the gayer sort. I compose comedies,
divert myself with pantomimes, read the lyric poets, and enter into
the spirit of the most wanton muse, besides that, I indulge myself
sometimes in laughter, mirth, and frolic, and, to sum up every
kind of innocent relaxation in one word, 7 am a man. I am not in

LETTERS 263

the least offended, though, at their low opinion of my morals, and
that those who are ignorant of the fact that the most learned, the
wisest, and the best of men have employed themselves in the same
way, should be surprised at the tone of my writings: but from
those who know what noble and numerous examples I follow,
I shall, I am confident, easily obtain permission to err with those
whom it is an honour to imitate, not only in their most serious
occupations but their lightest triflings. Is it unbecoming me I
will not name any living example, lest I should seem to flatter
but is it unbecoming me to practise what became Tully, Calvus,
Pollio, Messala, Hortensius, Brutus, Sulla, Catulus, Scaevola, Sulpitius,
Varro, the Torquati, Memmius, Gaetulicus, Seneca, Lucceius, and,
within our own memory, Verginius Rufus? But if the examples
of private men are not sufficient to justify me, I can cite Julius Caesar,
Augustus, Nerva, and Tiberius Caesar. I forbear to add Nero to the
catalogue, though I am aware that what is practised by the worst
of men does not therefore degenerate into wrong: on the contrary,
it still maintains its credit, if frequently countenanced by the best.
In that number, Virgil, Cornelius Nepos, and, prior to these, Ennius
and Attius, justly deserve the most distinguished place. These last
indeed were not senators, but goodness knows no distinction of rank
or title. I recite my works, it is true, and in this instance I am not
sure I can support myself by their examples. They, perhaps, might
be satisfied with their own judgment, but I have too humble an
opinion of mine to suppose my compositions perfect, because they
appear so to my own mind. My reasons then for reciting are, that,
for one thing, there is a certain deference for one's audience, which
excites a somewhat more vigorous application, and then again, I
have by this means an opportunity of settling any doubts I may
have concerning my performance, by observing the general opinion
of the audience. In a word, I have the advantage of receiving
different hints from different persons: and although they should
not declare their meaning in express terms, yet the expression of the
countenance, the movement of the head, the eyes, the motion of a
hand, a whisper, or even silence itself will easily distinguish their
real opinion from the language of politeness. And so if any one
of my audience should have the curiosity to read over the same

264 PLINY

performance which he heard me read, he may find several things
altered or omitted, and perhaps too upon his particular judgment,
though he did not say a single word to me. But I am not defending
my conduct in this particular, as if I had actually recited my works
in public, and not in my own house before my friends, a numerous
appearance of whom has upon many occasions been held an honour,
but never, surely, a reproach. Farewell.

LI

To NONIUS MAXIMUS

I AM deeply afflicted with the news I have received of the death
of Fannius; in the first place, because I loved one so eloquent and
refined, in the next, because I was accustomed to be guided by his
judgment and indeed he possessed great natural acuteness, im-
proved by practice, rendering him able to see a thing in an instant.
There are some circumstances about his death, which aggravate my
concern. He left behind him a will which had been made a con-
siderable time before his decease, by which it happens that his estate
is fallen into the hands of those who had incurred his displeasure,
whilst his greatest favourites are excluded. But what I particularly
regret is, that he has left unfinished a very noble work in which
he was employed. Notwithstanding his full practice at the bar,
he had begun a history of those persons who were put to death or
banished by Nero, and completed three books of it. They are
written with great elegance and precision, the style is pure, and pre-
serves a proper medium between the plain narrative and the histo-
rical : and as they were very favourably received by the public, he was
the more desirous of being able to finish the rest. The hand of
death is ever, in my opinion, too untimely and sudden when it
falls upon such as are employed in some immortal work. The
sons of sensuality, who have no outlook beyond the present hour,
put an end every day to all motives for living, but those who look
forward to posterity, and endeavour to transmit their names with
honour to future generations by their works to such, death is al-
ways immature, as it still snatches them from amidst some un-
finished design. Fannius, long before his death, had a presentiment

LETTERS 265

of what has happened: he dreamed one night that as he was lying
on his couch, in an undress, all ready for his work, and with his
desk, 1 as usual^in front of him, Nero entered, and placing himself
by his side, took up the three first books of this history, which he
read through and then departed. This dream greatly alarmed him,
and he regarded it as an intimation that he should not carry on
his history any farther than Nero had read, and so the event has
proved. I cannot reflect upon this accident without lamenting that
he was prevented from accomplishing a work which had cost him
so many toilsome vigils, as it suggests to me, at the same time,
reflections on my own mortality, and the fate of my writings: and
I am persuaded the same apprehensions alarm you for those in
which you are at present employed. Let us then, my friend, while
life permits, exert all our endeavours, that death, whenever it arrives,
may find as little as possible to destroy. Farewell.

LII

To DOMITIUS APOLLINARIS

THE kind concern you expressed on hearing of my design to pass
the summer at my villa in Tuscany, and your obliging endeavours
to dissuade me from going to a place which you think unhealthy,
are extremely pleasing to me. It is quite true indeed that the air
of that part of Tuscany which lies towards the coast is thick and
unwholesome: but my house stands at a good distance from the sea,
under one of the Apennines, which are singularly healthy. But, to
relieve you from all anxiety on my account, I will give you a descrip-
tion of the temperature of the climate, the situation of the country,
and the beauty of my villa, which, I am persuaded, you will hear
with as much pleasure as I shall take in giving it. The air in
winter is sharp and frosty, so that myrtles, olives, and trees of that
kind which delight in constant warmth, will not flourish here: but
the laurel thrives, and is remarkably beautiful, though now and then
the cold kills it though not oftener than it does in the neighbour-
hood of Rome. The summers are extraordinarily mild, and there is
always a refreshing breeze, seldom high winds. This accounts for

l ln the original, scrininm, a box for holding MSS.

266 PLINY

the number of old men we have about; you would see grandfathers
and great-grandfathers of those now grown up to be young men,
hear old stories and the dialect of our ancestors, and fancy yourself
born in some former age were you to come here. The character of
the country is exceedingly beautiful. Picture to yourself an immense
amphitheatre, such as nature only could create. Before you lies a
broad, extended plain bounded by a range of mountains, whose
summits are covered with tall and ancient woods, which are stocked
with all kinds of game. The descending slopes of the mountains
are planted with underwood, among which are a number of little
risings with a rich soil, on which hardly a stone is to be found. In
fruitfulness they are quite equal to a valley, and though their harvest
is rather later, their crops are just as good. At the foot of these, on
the mountainside, the eye, wherever it turns, runs along one un-
broken stretch of vineyards terminated by a belt of shrubs. Next
you have meadows and the open plain. The arable land is so stiff
that it is necessary to go over it nine times with the biggest oxen
and the strongest ploughs. The meadows are bright with flowers,
and produce trefoil and other kinds of herbage as fine and tender
as if it were but just sprung up, for all the soil is refreshed by
never-failing streams. But though there is plenty of water, there
are no marshes; for the ground being on a slope, whatever water
it receives without absorbing runs off into the Tiber. This river,
which winds through the middle of the meadows, is navigable only
in the winter and spring, at which seasons it transports the produce
of the lands to Rome: but in summer it sinks below its banks,
leaving the name of a great river to an almost empty channel:
towards the autumn, however, it begins again to renew its claim
to that title. You would be charmed by taking a view of this country
from the top of one of our neighbouring mountains, and would
fancy that not a real, but some imaginary landscape, painted by the
most exquisite pencil, lay before you, such an harmonious variety
of beautiful objects meets the eye, whichever way it turns. My
house, although at the foot of a hill, commands as good a view as
if it stood on its brow, yet you approach by so gentle and gradual
a rise that you find yourself on high ground without perceiving
you have been making an ascent. Behind, but at a great distance,

LETTERS 267

is the Apennine range. In the calmest days we get cool breezes
from that quarter, not sharp and cutting at all, being spent and
broken by the long distance they have travelled. The greater part
of the house has a southern aspect, and seems to invite the afternoon
sun in summer (but rather earlier in the winter) into a broad and
proportionately long portico, consisting of several rooms, particu-
larly a court of antique fashion. In front of the portico is a sort
of terrace, edged with box and shrubs cut into different shapes.
You descend, from the terrace, by an easy slope adorned with the
figures of animals in box, facing each other, to a lawn overspread
with the soft, I had almost said the liquid, Acanthus: this is sur-
rounded by a walk enclosed with evergreens, shaped into a variety
of forms. Beyond it is the gestatio, laid out in the form of a circus
running round the multiform box-hedge and the dwarf-trees, which
are cut quite close. The whole is fenced in with a wall completely
covered by box cut into steps all the way up to the top. On the
outside of the wall lies a meadow that owes as many beauties to
nature as all I have been describing within does to art; at the end
of which are open plain and numerous other meadows and copses.
From the extremity of the portico a large dining-room runs out,
opening upon one end of the terrace, while from the windows
there is a very extensive view over the meadows up into the country,
and from these you also see the terrace and the projecting wing of
the house together with the woods enclosing the adjacent hippo-
drome. Almost opposite the centre of the portico, and rather to
the back, stands a summer-house, enclosing a small area shaded by
four plane-trees, in the midst of which rises a marble fountain
which gently plays upon the roots of the plane-trees and upon the
grass-plots underneath them. This summer-house has a bedroom
in it free from every sort of noise, and which the light itself cannot
penetrate, together with a common dining-room I use when I have
none but intimate friends with me. A second portico looks upon
this little area, and has the same view as the other I have just been
describing. There is, besides, another room, which, being situate
close to the nearest plane-tree, enjoys a constant shade and green.
Its sides are encrusted with carved marble as far as the dado, while
above the marble a foliage is painted with birds among the branches,

268 PLINY

which has an effect altogether as agreeable as that of the carving,
at the foot of which a little fountain, playing through several small
pipes into a vase it encloses, produces a most pleasing murmur.
From a corner of the portico you enter a very large bedchamber
opposite the large dining-room, which from some of its windows
has a view of the terrace, and from others, of the meadow, as those
in the front look upon a cascade, which entertains at once both the
eye and the ear; for the water, dashing from a great height, foams
over the marble basin which receives it below. This room is ex-
tremely warm in winter, lying much exposed to the sun, and on
a cloudy day the heat of an adjoining stove very well supplies his
absence. Leaving this room, you pass through a good-sized, pleasant
undressing-room into the cold-bath-room, in which is a large, gloomy
bath: but if you are inclined to swim more at large, or in warmer
water, in the middle of the area stands a wide basin for that
purpose, and near it a reservoir from which you may be supplied
with cold water to brace yourself again, if you should find you
are too much relaxed by the warm. Adjoining the cold bath is
one of a medium degree of heat, which enjoys the kindly warmth
of the sun, but not so intensely as the hot bath, which projects
farther. This last consists of three several compartments, each of
different degrees of heat; the two former lie open to the full sun,
the latter, though not much exposed to its heat, receives an equal
share of its light. Over the undressing-room is built the tennis-court,
which admits of different kinds of games and different sets of
players. Not far from the baths is the staircase leading to the en-
closed portico, three rooms intervening. One of these looks out
upon the little area with the four plane-trees round it, the other
upon the meadows, and from the third you have a view of several
vineyards, so that each has a different one, and looks towards a
different point of the heavens. At the upper end of the enclosed
portico, and indeed taken off from it, is a room that looks out
upon the hippodrome, the vineyards, and the mountains; adjoining
is a room which has a full exposure to the sun, especially in winter,
and out of which runs another connecting the hippodrome with
the house. This forms the front. On the side rises an enclosed
portico, which not only looks out upon the vineyards, but seems

LETTERS 269

almost to touch them. From the middle of this portico you enter
a dining-room cooled by the wholesome breezes from the Apennine
valleys: from the windows behind, which are extremely large, there
is a close view of the vineyards, and from the folding doors through
the summer portico. Along that side of the dining-room where
there are no windows runs a private staircase for greater convenience
in serving up when I give an entertainment; at the farther end is
a sleeping-room with a lookout upon the vineyards, and (what is
equally agreeable) the portico. Underneath this room is an enclosed
portico resembling a grotto, which, enjoying in the midst of summer
heats its own natural coolness, neither admits nor wants external
air. After you have passed both these porticoes, at the end of the
dining-room stands a third, which, according as the day is more
or less advanced, serves either for winter or summer use. It leads
to two different apartments, one containing four chambers, the
other, three, which enjoy by turns both sun and shade. This arrange-
ment of the different parts of my house is exceedingly pleasant,
though it is not to be compared with the beauty of the hippodrome, 1
lying entirely open in the middle of the grounds, so that the eye,
upon your first entrance, takes it in entire in one view. It is set
round with plane-trees covered with ivy, so that, while their tops
flourish with their own green, towards the roots their verdure is
borrowed from the ivy that twines round the trunk and branches,
spreads from tree to tree, and connects them together. Between each
plane-tree are planted box-trees, and behind these stands a grove
of laurels which blend their shade with that of the planes. This
straight boundary to the hippodrome alters its shape at the farther
end, bending into a semicircle, which is planted round, shut in
with cypresses, and casts a deeper and gloomier shade, while the
inner circular walks (for there are several), enjoying an open ex-
posure, are filled with plenty of roses, and correct, by a very pleasant
contrast, the coolness of the shade with the warmth of the sun.
Having passed through these several winding alleys, you enter a
straight walk, which breaks out into a variety of others, partitioned

1 The hippodromus, in its proper signification, was a place, among the Grecians,
set apart for horse-racing and other exercises of that kind. But it seems here to be
nothing more than a particular walk to which Pliny perhaps gave that name from its
bearing some resemblance in its form to the public places so called. M.

270 PLINY

off by box-row hedges. In one place you have a little meadow, in
another the box is cut in a thousand different forms, sometimes
into letters, expressing the master's name, sometimes the artificer's,
whilst here and there rise little obelisks with fruit-trees alternately
intermixed, and then on a sudden, in the midst of this elegant
regularity, you are surprised with an imitation of the negligent
beauties of rural nature. In the centre of this lies a spot adorned
with a knot of dwarf plane-trees. Beyond these stands an acacia,
smooth and bending in places, then again various other shapes and
names. At the upper end is an alcove of white marble, shaded with
vines and supported by four small Carystian columns. From this
semicircular couch, the water, gushing up through several little pipes,
as though pressed out by the weight of the persons who recline
themselves upon it, falls into a stone cistern underneath, from whence
it is received into a fine polished marble basin, so skilfully contrived
that it is always full without ever overflowing. When I sup here,
this basin serves as a table, the larger sort of dishes being placed
round the margin, while the smaller ones swim about in the form
of vessels and water-fowl. Opposite this is a fountain which is in-
cessantly emptying and filling, for the water which it throws up
to a great height, falling back again into it, is by means of con-
secutive apertures returned as fast as it is received. Facing the
alcove (and reflecting upon it as great an ornament as it borrows
from it) stands a summer-house of exquisite marble, the doors of
which project and open into a green enclosure, while from its upper
and lower windows the eye falls upon a variety of different greens.
Next to this is a little private closet (which, though it seems distinct,
may form part of the same room), furnished with a couch, and
notwithstanding it has windows on every side, yet it enjoys a very
agreeable gloom, by means of a spreading vine which climbs to
the top, and entirely overshadows it. Here you may lie and fancy
yourself in a wood, with this only difference, that you are not
exposed to the weather as you would be there. Here too a fountain
rises and instantly disappears several marble seats are set in dif-
ferent places, which are as pleasant as the summer-house itself after
one is tired out with walking. Near each seat is a little fountain,
and throughout the whole hippodrome several small rills run

LETTERS 271

murmuring along through pipes, wherever the hand of art has
thought proper to conduct them, watering here and there different
plots of green, and sometimes all parts at once. I should have ended
before now, for fear of being too chatty, had I not proposed in
this letter to lead you into every corner of my house and gardens.
Nor did I apprehend your thinking it a trouble to read the descrip-
tion of a place which I feel sure would please you were you to see it;
especially as you can stop just when you please, and by throwing
aside my letter, sit down, as it were, and give yourself a rest as
often as you think proper. Besides, I gave my little passion in-
dulgence, for I have a passion for what I have built, or finished,
myself. In a word (for why should I conceal from my friend either
my deliberate opinion or my prejudice?), I look upon it as the
first duty of every writer to frequently glance over his title-page
and consider well the subject he has proposed to himself; and he
may be sure, if he dwells on his subject, he cannot justly be thought
tedious, whereas if, on the contrary, he introduces and drags in
anything irrelevant, he will be thought exceedingly so. Homer,
you know, has employed many verses in the description of the
arms of Achilles, as Virgil has also in those of ^Eneas, yet neither
of them is prolix, because they each keep within the limits of their
original design. Aratus, you observe, is not considered too circum-
stantial, though he traces and enumerates the minutest stars, for
he does not go out of his way for that purpose, but only follows
where his subject leads him. In the same way (to compare small
things with great), so long as, in endeavouring to give you an
idea of my house, I have not introduced anything irrelevant or
superfluous, it is not my letter which describes, but my villa which
is described, that is to be considered large. But to return to where
I began, lest I should justly be condemned by my own law, if I
continue longer in this digression, you see now the reasons why I
prefer my Tuscan villa to those which I possess at Tusculum, Tiber,
and Praeneste. 2 Besides the advantages already mentioned, I enjoy
here a cozier, more profound and undisturbed retirement than any-
where else, as I am at a greater distance from the business of the

2 Now called Frascati, Tivoli, and Palestrina, all of them situated in the Campagna
di Roma, and at no great distance from Rome. M.

272 PLINY

town and the interruption of troublesome clients. All is calm and
composed; which circumstances contribute no less than its clear
air and unclouded sky to that health of body and mind I particu-
larly enjoy in this place, both of which I keep in full swing by
study and hunting. And indeed there is no place which agrees
better with my family, at least I am sure I have not yet lost one
(may the expression be allowed! 3 ) of all those I brought here with
me. And may the gods continue that happiness to me, and that
honour to my villa. Farewell.

LIII
To CALVISIUS

IT is certain the law does not allow a corporate city to inherit
any estate by will, or to receive a legacy. Saturninus, however, who
has appointed me his heir, had left a fourth part of his estate to
our corporation of Comum; afterwards, instead of a fourth part,
he bequeathed four hundred thousand sesterces. 1 This bequest, in
the eye of the law, is null and void, but, considered as the clear
and express will of the deceased, ought to stand firm and valid.
Myself, I consider the will of the dead (though I am afraid what
I say will not please the lawyers) of higher authority than the law,
especially when the interest of one's native country is concerned.
Ought I, who made them a present of eleven hundred thousand
sesterces out of my own patrimony, to withhold a benefaction of
little more than a third part of that sum out of an estate which has
come quite by a chance into my hands? You, who like a true
patriot have the same affection for this our common country, will
agree with me in opinion, I feel sure. I wish therefore you would,
at the next meeting of the Decurii, acquaint them, just briefly and
respectfully, as to how the law stands in this case, and then add
that I offer them four hundred thousand sesterces according to the
direction in Saturninus' will. You will represent this donation as
his present and his liberality; I only claim the merit of complying
with his request. I did not trouble to write to their senate about

3 "This is said in allusion to the idea of Nemesis supposed to threaten excessive
prosperity." Church and Brodribb. l About $16,000.

LETTERS 273

this, fully relying as I do upon our intimate friendship and your
wise discretion, and being quite satisfied that you are both able
and willing to act for me upon this occasion as I would for myself;
besides, I was afraid I should not seem to have so cautiously guarded
my expressions in a letter as you will be able to do in a speech.
The countenance, the gesture, and even the tone of voice govern
and determine the sense of the speaker, whereas a letter, being with-
out these advantages, is more liable to malignant misinterpretation.
Farewell.

LIV
To MARCELLINUS

I WRITE this to you in the deepest sorrow: the youngest daughter
of my friend Fundanus is dead! I have never seen a more cheerful
and more lovable girl, or one who better deserved to have enjoyed
a long, I had almost said an immortal, life! She was scarcely four-
teen, and yet there was in her a wisdom far beyond her years, a
matronly gravity united with girlish sweetness and virgin bashful-
ness. With what an endearing fondness did she hang on her father's
neck! How affectionately and modestly she used to greet us, his
friends! With what a tender and deferential regard she used to
treat her nurses, tutors, teachers, each in their respective offices!
What an eager, industrious, intelligent reader she was! She took
few amusements, and those with caution. How self-controlled, how
patient, how brave she was under her last illness! She complied
with all the directions of her physicians; she spoke cheerful, com-
forting words to her sister and her father; and when all her bodily
strength was exhausted, the vigour of her mind sustained her. That
indeed continued even to her last moments, unbroken by the pain
of a long illness, or the terrors of approaching death; and it is a
reflection which makes us miss her, and grieve that she has gone
from us, the more. Oh, melancholy, untimely loss, too truly! She
was engaged to an excellent young man; the wedding-day was
fixed, and we were all invited. How our joy has been turned into
sorrow! I cannot express in words the inward pain I felt when I
heard Fundanus himself (as grief is ever finding out fresh circum-

274 PLINY

stances to aggravate its affliction) ordering the money he had in-
tended laying out upon clothes, pearls, and jewels for her marriage,
to be employed in frankincense, ointments, and perfumes for her
funeral. He is a man of great learning and good sense, who has
applied himself from his earliest youth to the deeper studies and
the fine arts, but all the maxims of fortitude which he has received
from books, or advanced himself, he now absolutely rejects, and
every other virtue of his heart gives place to all a parent's tenderness.
You will excuse, you will even approve, his grief, when you con-
sider what he has lost. He has lost a daughter who resembled him
in his manners, as well as his person, and exactly copied out all
her father. So, if you should think proper to write to him upon
the subject of so reasonable a grief, let me remind you not to use
the rougher arguments of consolation, and such as seem to carry
a sort of reproof with them, but those of kind and sympathizing
humanity. Time will render him more open to the dictates of reason:
for as a fresh wound shrinks back from the hand of the surgeon,
but by degrees submits to, and even seeks of its own accord, the
means of its cure, so a mind under the first impression of a mis-
fortune shuns and rejects all consolations, but at length desires and
is lulled by their gentle application. Farewell.

LV

To SPURINNA

KNOWING, as I do, how much you admire the polite arts, and
what satisfaction you take in seeing young men of quality pursue
the steps of their ancestors, I seize this earliest opportunity of in-
forming you that I went to-day to hear Calpurnius Piso read a
beautiful and scholarly production of his, entitled the Sports of
Love. His numbers, which were elegiac, were tender, sweet, and
flowing, at the same time that they occasionally rose to all the sub-
limity of diction which the nature of his subject required. He
varied his style from the lofty to the simple, from the close to the
copious, from the grave to the florid, with equal genius and judg-
ment. These beauties were further recommended by a most har-
monious voice; which a very becoming modesty rendered still more

LETTERS 275

pleasing. A confusion and concern in the countenance of a speaker
imparts a grace to all he utters; for diffidence, I know not how, is
infinitely more engaging than assurance and self-sufficiency. I might
mention several other circumstances to his advantage, which I am
the more inclined to point out, as they are exceedingly striking in
one of his age, and are most uncommon in a youth of his quality:
but not to enter into a farther detail of his merit, I will only add
that, when he had finished his poem, I embraced him very heartily,
and being persuaded that nothing is a greater encouragement than
applause, I exhorted him to go on as he had begun, and to shine
out to posterity with the same glorious lustre, which was reflected
upon him from his ancestors. I congratulated his excellent mother,
and particularly his brother, who gained as much honour by the
generous affection he manifested upon this occasion as Calpurnius
did by his eloquence; so remarkable a solicitude he showed for
him when he began to recite his poem, and so much pleasure in
his success. May the gods grant me frequent occasions of giving
you accounts of this nature! for I have a partiality to the age in
which I live, and should rejoice to find it not barren of merit. I
ardently wish, therefore, our young men of quality would have some-
thing else to shew of honourable memorial in their houses than the
images 1 of their ancestors. As for those which are placed in the
mansion of these excellent youths, I now figure them to myself as
silently applauding and encouraging their pursuits, and (what is a
sufficient degree of honour to both brothers) as recognizing their
kindred. Farewell.

LVI

To PAULINUS

As I know the humanity with which you treat your own servants,
I have less reserve in confessing to you the indulgence I shew to
mine. I have ever in my mind that line of Homer's
"Who swayed his people with a father's love":

1 None had the right of using family pictures or statues but those whose ancestors
or themselves had borne some of the highest dignities. So that the jus imaginis was
much the same thing among the Romans as the right of bearing a coat of arms
among us. Ken. Antiq. M.

276 PLINY

and this expression of ours, "father of a family." But were I harsher
and harder than I really am by nature, the ill state of health of my
freedman Zosimus (who has the stronger claim upon my tenderness,
in that he now stands in more especial need of it) would be sufficient
to soften me. He is a good, honest fellow, attentive in his services,
and well-read; but his chief talent, and indeed his distinguishing
qualification, is that of a comedian, in which he highly excels. His
pronunciation is distinct, correct in emphasis, pure, and graceful: he
has a very skilled touch, too, upon the lyre, and performs with better
execution than is necessary for one of his profession. To this I
must add, he reads history, oratory, and poetry, as well as if these
had been the sole objects of his study. I am the more particular
in enumerating his qualifications, to let you see how many agreeable
services I receive from this one servant alone. He is indeed endeared
to me by the ties of a long affection, which are strengthened by the
danger he is now in. For nature has so formed our hearts that
nothing contributes more to incite and kindle affection than the
fear of losing the object of it: a fear which I have suffered more
than once on his account. Some years ago he strained himself so
much by too strong an exertion of his voice, that he spit blood,
upon which account I sent him into Egypt; 1 from whence, after a
long absence, he lately returned with great benefit to his health.
But having again exerted himself for several days together beyond
his strength, he was reminded of his former malady by a slight
return of his cough, and a spitting of blood. For this reason I intend
to send him to your farm at Forum-Julii, 2 having frequently heard
you mention it as a healthy air, and recommend the milk of that
place as very salutary in disorders of his nature. I beg you would
give directions to your people to receive him into your house, and
to supply him with whatever he may have occasion for: which will
not be much, for he is so sparing and abstemious as not only to
abstain from delicacies, but even to deny himself the necessaries
his ill state of health requires. I shall furnish him towards his journey
with what will be sufficient for one of his moderate requirements,
who is coming under your roof. Farewell.

1 The Roman physicians used to send their patients in consumptive cases into
Egypt, particularly to Alexandria. M.

2 Fre'jus, in Provence, the southern part of France. M.

LETTERS 277

LVII
To RUFUS

I WENT into the Julian 1 court to hear those lawyers to whom,
according to the last adjournment, I was to reply.' The judges had
taken their seats, the decemviri 2 were arrived, the eyes of the audience
were fixed upon the counsel, and all was hushed silence and expecta-
tion, when a messenger arrived from the prastor, and the Hundred
are at once dismirsed, and the case postponed : an accident extremely
agreeable to me, who am never so well prepared but that I am
glad of gaining further time. The occasion of the court's rising
thus abruptly was a short edict of Nepos, the praetor for criminal
causes, in which he directed all persons concerned as plaintiffs or
defendants in any cause before him to take notice that he designed
strictly to put in force the decree of the senate annexed to his edict.
Which decree was expressed in the following words: ALL PERSONS

WHOSOEVER THAT HAVE ANY LAWSUITS DEPENDING ARE HEREBY REQUIRED
AND COMMANDED, BEFORE ANY PROCEEDINGS BE HAD THEREON, TO TAKE AN
OATH THAT THEY HAVE NOT GIVEN, PROMISED, OR ENGAGED TO GIVE, ANY
FEE OR REWARD TO ANY ADVOCATE, UPON ACCOUNT OF HIS UNDERTAKING

THEIR CAUSE. In these terms, and many others equally full and ex-
press, the lawyers were prohibited to make their professions venal.
However, after the case is decided, they are permitted to accept a
gratuity of ten thousand sesterces. 3 The praetor for civil causes,
being alarmed at this order of Nepos, gave us this unexpected holiday
in order to take time to consider whether he should follow the
example. Meanwhile the whole town is talking, and either approv-
ing or condemning this edict of Nepos. We have got then at last
(say the latter with a sneer) a redresser of abuses. But, pray, was
there never a prcetor before this man? Who is he then who sets up
in this way for a public reformer? Others, on the contrary, say,
"He has done perfectly right upon his entry into office; he has paid

1 A court of justice erected by Julius Caesar in the forum, and opposite to the
basilica Emilia.

2 The decemviri seem to have been magistrates for the administration of justice,
subordinate to the praetors, who (to give the English reader a general notion of their
office) may be termed lords chief justices, as the judges here mentioned were some-
thing in the nature of our juries. A/. 3 About $400.

278 PLINY

obedience to the laws; considered the decrees of the senate, repressed
most indecent contracts, and will not suffer the most honourable of
all professions to be debased into a sordid lucre traffic." This is
what one hears all around one; but which side may prevail, the
event will shew. It is the usual method of the world (though a
very unequitable rule of estimation) to pronounce an action either
right or wrong, according as it is attended with good or ill success;
in consequence of which you may hear the very same conduct at-
tributed to zeal or folly, to liberty or licentiousness, upon different
several occasions. Farewell.

LVIII
To ARRIANUS

SOMETIMES I miss Regulus in our courts. I cannot say I deplore
his loss. The man, it must be owned, highly respected his profession,
grew pale with study and anxiety over it, and used to write out his
speeches though he could not get them by heart. There was a practice
he had of painting round his right or left eye, 1 and wearing a white
patch 2 over one side or the other of his forehead, according as he was
to plead either for the plaintiff or defendant; of consulting the
soothsayers upon the issue of an action; still, all this excessive super-
stition was really due to his extreme earnestness in his profession.
And it was acceptable enough being concerned in the same cause
with him, as he always obtained full indulgence in point of time,
and never failed to get an audience together; for what could be
more convenient than, under the protection of a liberty which you
did not ask yourself, and all the odium of the arrangement resting
with another, and before an audience which you had not the trouble
of collecting, to speak on at your ease, and as long as you thought

1 This silly piece of superstition seems to have been peculiar to Regulus, and not
of any general practice; at least it is a custom of which we find no other mention
in antiquity. M.

2 "We gather from Martial that the wearing of these was not an unusual practice
with fops and dandies. See Epig. ii. 29, in which he ridicules a certain Rufus, and
hints that if you were to strip off the 'splenia' " (plasters) "from his face, you would
find out that he was a branded runaway slave." Church and Brodribb.

LETTERS 279

proper? Nevertheless Regulus did well in departing this life,
though he would have done much better had he made his exit
sooner. He might really have lived now without any danger to
the public, in the reign of a prince under whom he would have had
no opportunity of doing any harm. I need not scruple therefore, I
think, to say I sometimes miss him: for since his death the custom
has prevailed of not allowing, nor indeed of asking, more than an
hour or two to plead in, and sometimes not above half that time.
The truth is, our advocates take more pleasure in finishing a cause
than in defending it; and our judges had rather rise from the bench
than sit upon it: such is their indolence, and such their indifference
to the honour of eloquence and the interest of justice! But are we
wiser than our ancestors? are we more equitable than the laws
which grant so many hours and days and adjournments to a case?
were our forefathers slow of apprehension, and dull beyond measure ?
and are we clearer of speech, quicker in our conceptions, or more
scrupulous in our decisions, because we get over our causes in fewer
hours than they took days? O Regulus! it was by zeal in your
profession that you secured an advantage which is but rarely given
to the highest integrity. As for myself, whenever I sit upon the
bench (which is much oftener than I appear at the bar), I always
give the advocates as much time as they require: for I look upon
it as highly presuming to pretend to guess, before a case is heard,
what time it will require, and to set limits to an affair before one
is acquainted with its extent; especially as the first and most sacred
duty of a judge is patience, which constitutes an important part of
justice. But this, it is objected, would give an opening to much
superfluous matter: I grant it may; yet is it not better to hear too
much than not to hear enough? Besides, how shall you know that
what an advocate has farther to offer will be superfluous, until you
have heard him? But this, and many other public abuses, will be
best reserved for a conversation when we meet; for I know your
affection to the commonwealth inclines you to wish that some means
might be found out to check at least those grievances, which would
now be very difficult absolutely to remove. But to return to affairs
of private concern: I hope all goes well in your family; mine remains

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in its usual situation. The good which I enjoy grows more acceptable
to me by its continuance; as habit renders me less sensible of the
evils I suffer. Farewell.

LIX

To CALPURNIA'

NEVER was business more disagreeable to me than when it pre-
vented me not only from accompanying you when you went into
Campania for your health, but from following you there soon after;
for I want particularly to be with you now, that I may learn from
my own eyes whether you are growing stronger and stouter, and
whether the tranquillity, the amusements, and plenty of that charm-
ing country really agree with you. Were you in perfect health, yet
I could ill support your absence; for even a moment's uncertainty
of the welfare of those we tenderly love causes a feeling of suspense
and anxiety: but now your sickness conspires with your absence to
trouble me grievously with vague and various anxieties. I dread
everything, fancy everything, and, as is natural to those who fear,
conjure up the very things I most dread. Let me the more earnestly
entreat you then to think of my anxiety, and write to me every day,
and even twice a day: I shall be more easy, at least while I am
reading your letters, though when I have read them, I shall imme-
diately feel my fears again. Farewell.

LX

To CALPURNIA

You kindly tell me my absence very sensibly affects you, and that
your only consolation is in conversing with my works, which you
frequently substitute in my stead. I am glad that you miss me;
I am glad that you find some rest in these alleviations. In return,
I read over your letters again and again, and am continually taking
them up, as if I had just received them; but, alas! this only stirs in
me a keener longing for you; for how sweet must her conversation
be whose letters have so many charms! Let me receive them, how-

1 His wife.

LETTERS 28l

ever, as often as possible, notwithstanding there is still a mixture
of pain in the pleasure they afford me. Farewell.

LXI

To PRISCUS

You know Attilius Crescens, and you love him; who is there,
indeed, of any rank or worth, that does not? For myself, I pro-
fess to have a friendship for him far exceeding ordinary attachments
of the world. Our native towns are separated only by a day's
journey; and we got to care for each other when we were very
young; the season for passionate friendships. Ours improved by
years; and so far from being chilled, it was confirmed by our riper
judgments, as those who know us best can witness. He takes pleasure
in boasting everywhere of my friendship; as I do to let the world
know that his reputation, his ease, and his interest are my peculiar
concern. Insomuch that upon his expressing to me some apprehen-
sion of insolent treatment from a certain person who was entering
upon the tribuneship of the people, I could not forbear answering,

"Long as Achilles breathes this vital air,
To touch thy head no impious hand shall dare." 1

What is my object in telling you these things? Why, to shew you
that I look upon every injury ofTered to Attilius as done to myself.
"But what is the object of all this?" you repeat. You must know then,
Valerius Varus, at his death, owed Attilius a sum of money. Though
I am on friendly terms with Maximus, his heir, yet there is a closer
friendship between him and you. I beg therefore, and entreat you
by the affection you have for me, to take care that Attilius is not
only paid the capital which is due to him, but all the long arrears of
interest too. He neither covets the property of others nor neglects
the care of his own; and as he is not engaged in any lucrative pro-
fession, he has nothing to depend upon but his own frugality: for
as to literature, in which he greatly distinguishes himself, he pursues
this merely from motives of pleasure and ambition. In such a situa-
tion, the slightest loss presses hard upon a man, and the more so
Horn. II. lib. i., v. 88.

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because he has no opportunities of repairing any injury done to his
fortune. Remove then, I entreat you, our uneasiness, and suffer me
still to enjoy the pleasure of his wit and bonhommie; for I cannot
bear to see the cheerfulness of my friend overclouded, whose mirth
and good humour dissipates every gloom of melancholy in myself.
In short, you know what a pleasant, entertaining fellow he is, and
I hope you will not suffer any injury to engloom and embitter his
disposition. You may judge by the warmth of his affection how
severe his resentments would prove; for a generous and great mind
can ill brook an injury when coupled with contempt. But though
he could pass it over, yet cannot I: on the contrary, I shall regard
it as a wrong and indignity done to myself, and resent it as one
offered to my friend; that is, with double warmth. But, after all,
why this air of threatening? rather let me end in the same style
in which I began, namely, by begging, entreating you so to act in
this affair that neither Attilius may have reason to imagine (which
I am exceedingly anxious he should not) that I neglect his interest,
nor that I may have occasion to charge you with carelessness of mine:
as undoubtedly I shall not if you have the same regard for the latter
as I have for the former. Farewell.

LXII

To ALBINUS

I WAS lately at Alsium, 1 where my mother-in-law has a villa which
once belonged to Verginius Rufus. The place renewed in my mind
the sorrowful remembrance of that great and excellent man. He
was extremely fond of this retirement, and used to call it the nest of
his old age. Whichever way I looked, I missed him, I felt his absence.
I had an inclination to visit his monument; but I repented having
seen it, afterwards: for I found it still unfinished, and this, not from
any difficulty residing in the work itself, for it is very plain, or rather
indeed slight; but through the neglect of him to whose care it was
entrusted. I could not see without a concern, mixed with indignation,
the remains of a man, whose fame filled the whole world, lie for ten
years after his death without an inscription, or a name. He had,
1 Now Alzia, not far from Como.

LETTERS 283

however, directed that the divine and immortal action of his life
should be recorded upon his tomb in the following lines:

"Here Rufus lies, who Vindex' arms withstood,
Not for himself, but for his country's good."

But faithful friends are so rare, and the dead so soon forgotten, that
we shall be obliged ourselves to build even our very tombs, and
anticipate the office of our heirs. For who is there that has no reason
to fear for himself what we see has happened to Verginius, whose
eminence and distinction, while rendering such treatment more
shameful, so, in the same way, make it more notorious? Farewell.

LXIII
To MAXIMUS

OH, WHAT a happy day I lately spent! I was called by the prefect
of Rome, to assist him in a certain case, and had the pleasure of
hearing two excellent young men, Fuscus Salinator and Numidius
Quadratus, plead on the opposite sides: their worth is equal, and each
of them will one day, I am persuaded, prove an ornament not only
to the present age, but to literature itself. They evinced upon this
occasion an admirable probity, supported by inflexible courage: their
dress was decent, their elocution distinct, their tones were manly,
their memory retentive, their genius elevated, and guided by an
equal solidity of judgment. I took infinite pleasure in observing them
display these noble qualities; particularly as I had the satisfaction to
see that, while they looked upon me as their guide and model, they
appeared to the audience as my imitators and rivals. It was a day
(I cannot but repeat it again) which afforded me the most exquisite
happiness, and which I shall ever distinguish with the fairest mark.
For what indeed could be either more pleasing to me on the public
account than to observe two such noble youths building their fame
and glory upon the polite arts; or more desirable upon my own than
to be marked out as a worthy example to them in their pursuits of
virtue? May the gods still grant me the continuance of that pleasure!
And I implore the same gods, you are my witness, to make all these
who think me deserving of imitation far better than I am. Farewell.

284 PLINY

LXIV

To ROMANUS

You were not present at a very singular occurrence here lately:
neither was I, but the story reached me just after it had happened.
Passienus Paulus, a Roman knight, of good family, and a man of
peculiar learning and culture besides, composes elegies, a talent
which runs in the family, for Propertius is reckoned by him amongst
his ancestors, as well as being his countryman. He was lately reciting
a poem which began thus:

"Priscus, at thy command"

whereupon Javolenus Priscus, who happened to be present as a
particular friend of the poet's, cried out, "But he is mistaken, I did not
command him." Think what laughter and merriment this occa-
sioned. Priscus's wits, you must know, are reckoned rather unsound, 1
though he takes a share in public business, is summoned to consulta-
tions, and even publicly acts as a lawyer, so that this behaviour of his
was the more remarkable and ridiculous: meanwhile Paulus was a
good deal disconcerted by his friend's absurdity. You see how neces-
sary it is for those who are anxious to recite their works in public
to take care that the audience as well as the author are perfectly sane.
Farewell.

LXV

To TACITUS

YOUR request that I would send you an account of my uncle's
death, in order to transmit a more exact relation of it to posterity,
deserves my acknowledgments; for, if this accident shall be cele-
brated by your pen, the glory of it, I am well assured, will be
rendered for ever illustrious. And notwithstanding he perished by
a misfortune, which, as it involved at the same time a most beautiful
country in ruins, and destroyed so many populous cities, seems to
promise him an everlasting remembrance; notwithstanding he has

1 Nevertheless, Javolenus Priscus was one of the most eminent lawyers of his
time, and is frequently quoted in the Digesta of Justinian.

LETTERS 285

himself composed many and lasting works; yet I am persuaded, the
mentioning of him in your immortal writings, will greatly contribute
to render his name immortal. Happy I esteem those to be to whom
by provision of the gods has been granted the ability either to do such
actions as are worthy of being related or to relate them in a manner
worthy of being read; but peculiarly happy are they who are blessed
with both these uncommon talents: in the number of which my
uncle, as his own writings and your history will evidently prove, may
justly be ranked. It is with extreme willingness, therefore, that I
execute your commands; and should indeed have claimed the task if
you had not enjoined it. He was at that time with the fleet under his
command at Misenum. 1 On the 24th of August, about one in the
afternoon, my mother desired him to observe a cloud which appeared
of a very unusual size and shape. He had just taken a turn in the
sun, 2 and, after bathing himself in cold water, and making a light
luncheon, gone back to his books: he immediately arose and went out
upon a rising ground from whence he might get a better sight of this
very uncommon appearance. A cloud, from which mountain was
uncertain, at this distance (but it was found afterwards to come from
Mount Vesuvius), was ascending, the appearance of which I cannot
give you a more exact description of than by likening it to that of a
pine-tree, for it shot up to a great height in the form of a very tall
trunk, which spread itself out at the top into a sort of branches;
occasioned, I imagine, either by a sudden gust of air that impelled it,
the force of which decreased as it advanced upwards, or the cloud
itself, being pressed back again by its own weight, expanded in the
manner I have mentioned; it appeared sometimes bright and some-
times dark and spotted, according as it was either more or less im-
pregnated with earth and cinders. This phenomenon seemed to a
man of such learning and research as my uncle extraordinary and
worth further looking into. He ordered a light vessel to be got

1 In the Bay of Naples.

2 The Romans used to lie or walk naked in the sun, after anointing their bodies
with oil, which was esteemed as greatly contributing to health, and therefore daily
practised by them. This custom, however, of anointing themselves, is inveighed
against by the satirists as in the number of their luxurious indulgences: but since we
find the elder Pliny here, and the amiable Spurinna in a former letter, practising
this method, we cannot suppose the thing itself was esteemed unmanly, but only
when it was attended with some particular circumstances of an ovcrrefined deli-
cacy. M.

286 PLINY

ready, and gave me leave, if I liked, to accompany him. I said I
had rather go on with my work; and it so happened, he had himself
given me something to write out. As he was coming out of the house,
he received a note from Rectina, the wife of Bassus, who was in the
utmost alarm at the imminent danger which threatened her; for
her villa lying at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, there was no way of
escape but by sea; she earnestly entreated him therefore to come
to her assistance. He accordingly changed his first intention, and
what he had begun from a philosophical, he now carries out in a
noble and generous spirit. He ordered the galleys to be put to sea,
and went himself on board with an intention of assisting not only
Rectina, but the several other towns which lay thickly strewn along
that beautiful coast. Hastening then to the place from whence others
fled with the utmost terror, he steered his course direct to the point
of danger, and with so much calmness and presence of mind as to
be able to make and dictate his observations upon the motion and all
the phenomena of that dreadful scene. He was now so close to the
mountain that the cinders, which grew thicker and hotter the nearer
he approached, fell into the ships, together with pumice-stones, and
black pieces of burning rock: they were in danger too not only of
being aground by the sudden retreat of the sea, but also from the
vast fragments which rolled down from the mountain, and ob-
structed all the shore. Here he stopped to consider whether he should
turn back again; to which the pilot advising him, "Fortune," said
he, "favours the brave; steer to where Pomponianus is." Pom-
ponianus was then at Stabiae, 3 separated by a bay, which the sea, after
several insensible windings, forms with the shore. He had already
sent his baggage on board; for though he was not at that time in
actual danger, yet being within sight of it, and indeed extremely
near, if it should in the least increase, he was determined to put to
sea as soon as the wind, which was blowing dead inshore, should go
down. It was favourable, however, for carrying my uncle to Pom-
ponianus, whom he found in the greatest consternation : he embraced
him tenderly, encouraging and urging him to keep up his spirits,
and, the more effectually to soothe his fears by seeming unconcerned
himself, ordered a bath to be got ready, and then, after having
3 Now called Castelamare, in the Bay of Naples. M.

LETTERS 287

bathed, sat down to supper with great cheerfulness, or at least (what
is just as heroic) with every appearance of it. Meanwhile broad
flames shone out in several places from Mount Vesuvius, which the
darkness of the night contributed to render still brighter and clearer.
But my uncle, in order to soothe the apprehensions of his friend,
assured him it was only the burning of the villages, which the
country people had abandoned to the flames: after this he retired to
rest, and it is most certain he was so little disquieted as to fall into
a sound sleep : for his breathing, which, on account of his corpulence,
was rather heavy and sonorous, was heard by the attendants outside.
The court which led to his apartment being now almost filled with
stones and ashes, if he had continued there any time longer, it
would have been impossible for him to have made his way out. So
he was awoke and got up, and went to Pomponianus and the rest
of his company, who were feeling too anxious to think of going to
bed. They consulted together whether it would be most prudent to
trust to the houses, which now rocked from side to side with frequent
and violent concussions as though shaken from their very founda-
tions; or fly to the open fields, where the calcined stones and cinders,
though light indeed, yet fell in large showers, and threatened destruc-
tion. In this choice of dangers they resolved for the fields: a resolu-
tion which, while the rest of the company were hurried into by their
fears, my uncle embraced upon cool and deliberate consideration.
They went out then, having pillows tied upon their heads with
napkins; and this was their whole defence against the storm of
stones that fell round them. It was now day everywhere else, but
there a deeper darkness prevailed than in the thickest night; which,
however, was in some degree alleviated by torches and other lights
of various kinds. They thought proper to go farther down upon the
shore to see if they might safely put out to sea, but found the waves
still running extremely high, and boisterous. There my uncle, laying
himself down upon a sail-cloth, which was spread for him, called
twice for some cold water, which he drank, when immediately the
flames, preceded by a strong whiflf of sulphur, dispersed the rest of
the party, and obliged him to rise. He raised himself up with the
assistance of two of his servants, and instantly fell down dead;
suffocated, as I conjecture, by some gross and noxious vapour, having

288 PLINY

always had a weak throat, which was often inflamed. As soon as it
was light again, which was not till the third day after this melancholy
accident, his body was found entire, and without any marks of
violence upon it, in the dress in which he fell, and looking more
like a man asleep than dead. During all this time my mother and I,
who were at Misenum but this has no connection with your history,
and you did not desire any particulars besides those of my uncle's
death; so I will end here, only adding that I have faithfully related
to you what I was either an eye-witness of myself or received imme-
diately after the accident happened, and before there was time to
vary the truth. You will pick out of this narrative whatever is most
important: for a letter is one thing, a history another; it is one thing
writing to a friend, another thing writing to the public. Farewell.

LXVI
To CORNELIUS TACITUS

THE letter which, in compliance with your request, I wrote to you
concerning the death of my uncle has raised, it seems, your curiosity
to know what terrors and dangers attended me while I continued at
Misenum; for there, I think, my account broke off:

"Though my shock'd soul recoils, my tongue shall tell."

My uncle having left us, I spent such time as was left on my studies
(it was on their account indeed that I had stopped behind), till it
was time for my bath. After which I went to supper, and then fell
into a short and uneasy sleep. There had been noticed for many days
before a trembling of the earth, which did not alarm us much, as this
is quite an ordinary occurrence in Campania; but it was so particu-
larly violent that night that it not only shook but actually overturned,
as it would seem, everything about us. My mother rushed into my
chamber, where she found me rising, in order to awaken her. We
sat down in the open court of the house, which occupied a small
space between the buildings and the sea. As I was at that time but
eighteen years of age, I know not whether I should call my behaviour,
in this dangerous juncture, courage or folly; but I took up Livy,
and amused myself with turning over that author, and even making

LETTERS 289

extracts from him, as if I had been perfectly at my leisure. Just then,
a friend of my uncle's, who had lately come to him from Spain,
joined us, and observing me sitting by my mother with a book in my
hand, reproved her for her calmness, and me at the same time for my
careless security: nevertheless I went on with my author. Though it
was now morning, the light was still exceedingly faint and doubtful;
the buildings all around us tottered, and though we stood upon
open ground, yet as the place was narrow and confined, there was no
remaining without imminent danger: we therefore resolved to quit
the town. A panic-stricken crowd followed us, and (as to a mind
distracted with terror every suggestion seems more prudent than its
own) pressed on us in dense array to drive us forward as we came
out. Being at a convenient distance from the houses, we stood still,
in the midst of a most dangerous and dreadful scene. The chariots,
which we had ordered to be drawn out, were so agitated backwards
and forwards, though upon the most level ground, that we could
not keep them steady, even by supporting them with large stones.
The sea seemed to roll back upon itself, and to be driven from its
banks by the convulsive motion of the earth; it is certain at least the
shore was considerably enlarged, and several sea animals were left
upon it. On the other side, a black and dreadful cloud, broken with
rapid, zigzag flashes, revealed behind it variously shaped masses of
flame: these last were like sheet-lightning, but much larger. Upon
this our Spanish friend, whom I mentioned above, addressing himself
to my mother and me with great energy and urgency: "If your
brother," he said, "if your uncle be safe, he certainly wishes you may
be so too; but if he perished, it was his desire, no doubt, that you
might both survive him: why therefore do you delay your escape a
moment?" We could never think of our own safety, we said, while
we were uncertain of his. Upon this our friend left us, and withdrew
from the danger with the utmost precipitation. Soon afterwards,
the cloud began to descend, and cover the sea. It had already sur-
rounded and concealed the island of Capreae and the promontory of
Misenum. My mother now besought, urged, even commanded me
to make my escape at any rate, which, as I was young, I might easily
do; as for herself, she said, her age and corpulency rendered all
attempts of that sort impossible; however, she would willingly meet

290 PLINY

death if she could have the satisfaction of seeing that she was not
the occasion of mine. But I absolutely refused to leave her, and,
taking her by the hand, compelled her to go with me. She complied
with great reluctance, and not without many reproaches to herself
for retarding my flight. The ashes now began to fall upon us, though
in no great quantity. I looked back; a dense, dark mist seemed to be
following us, spreading itself over the country like a cloud. "Let us
turn out of the highroad," I said, "while we can still see, for fear that,
should we fall in the road, we should be pressed to death in the
dark, by the crowds that are following us." We had scarcely sat
down when night came upon us, not such as we have when the sky
is cloudy, or when there is no moon, but that of a room when it is
shut up, and all the lights put out. You might hear the shrieks of
women, the screams of children, and the shouts of men; some calling
for their children, others for their parents, others for their husbands,
and seeking to recognize each other by the voices that replied; one
lamenting his own fate, another that of his family; some wishing to
die, from the very fear of dying; some lifting their hands to the gods;
but the greater part convinced that there were now no gods at all,
and that the final endless night of which we have heard had come
upon the world. 1 Among these there were some who augmented the
real terrors by others imaginary or wilfully invented. I remember
some who declared that one part of Misenum had fallen, that another
was on fire; it was false, but they found people to believe them. It
now grew rather lighter, which we imagined to be rather the fore-
runner of an approaching burst of flames (as in truth it was) than
the return of day : however, the fire fell at a distance from us : then
again we were immersed in thick darkness, and a heavy shower of
ashes rained upon us, which we were obliged every now and then to
stand up to shake off, otherwise we should have been crushed and
buried in the heap. I might boast that, during all this scene of horror,
not a sigh, or expression of fear, escaped me, had not my support been
grounded in that miserable, though mighty, consolation, that all
mankind were involved in the same calamity, and that I was perish-
ing with the world itself. At last this dreadful darkness was dis-

1 The Stoic and Epicurean philosophers held that the world was to be destroyed
by fire, and all things fall again into original chaos; not excepting even the national
gods themselves from the destruction of this general conflagration. A/.

LETTERS 291

sipated by degrees, like a cloud or smoke; the real day returned, and
even the sun shone out, though with a lurid light, as when an
eclipse is coming on. Every object that presented itself to our eyes
(which were extremely weakened) seemed changed, being covered
deep with ashes as if with snow. We returned to Misenum, where we
refreshed ourselves as well as we could, and passed an anxious night
between hope and fear; though, indeed, with a much larger share
of the latter: for the earthquake still continued, while many frenzied
persons ran up and down heightening their own and their friends'
calamities by terrible predictions. However, my mother and I, not-
withstanding the danger we had passed, and that which still threat-
ened us, had no thoughts of leaving the place, till we could receive
some news of my uncle.

And now, you will read this narrative without any view of
inserting it in your history, of which it is not in the least worthy;
and, indeed, you must put it down to your own request if it should
appear not worth even the trouble of a letter. Farewell.

LXVII
To MACER

How much does the fame of human actions depend upon the
station of those who perform them! The very same conduct shall be
either applauded to the skies or entirely overlooked, just as it may
happen to proceed from a person of conspicuous or obscure rank. I
was sailing lately upon our lake, 1 with an old man of my acquaint-
ance, who desired me to observe a villa situated upon its banks, which
had a chamber overhanging the water. "From that room," said he,
"a woman of our city threw herself and her husband." Upon enquir-
ing into the cause, he informed me, "That her husband having been
long afflicted with an ulcer in those parts which modesty conceals,
she prevailed with him at last to let her inspect the sore, assuring
him at the same time that she would most sincerely give her opinion
whether there was a possibility of its being cured. Accordingly,
upon viewing the ulcer, she found the case hopeless, and therefore
advised him to put an end to his life: she herself accompanying him,

1 The lake Larius.

292 PLINY

even leading the way by her example, and being actually the means
of his death; for tying herself to her husband, she plunged with him
into the lake." Though this happened in the very city where I was
born, I never heard it mentioned before; and yet that this action is
taken less notice of than that famous one of Arria's, is not because
it was less remarkable, but because the person who performed it was
more obscure. Farewell.

LXVIII
To SERVIANUS

I AM extremely glad to hear that you intend your daughter for
Fuscus Salinator, and congratulate you upon it. His family is
patrician, 1 and both his father and mother are persons of the most
distinguished merit. As for himself, he is studious, learned, and
eloquent, and, with all the innocence of a child, unites the sprightli-
ness of youth and the wisdom of age. I am not, believe me, deceived
by my affection, when I give him this character; for though I love
him, I confess, beyond measure (as his friendship and esteem for
me well deserve), yet partiality has no share in my judgment: on the
contrary, the stronger my affection for him, the more exactingly
I weigh his merit. I will venture, then, to assure you (and I speak
it upon my own experience) you could not have, formed to your
wishes, a more accomplished son-in-law. May he soon present you
with a grandson, who shall be the exact copy of his father! and with
what pleasure shall I receive from the arms of two such friends their
children or grandchildren, whom I shall claim a sort of right to
embrace as my own! Farewell.

LXIX
To SEVERUS

You desire me to consider what turn you should give to your
speech in honour of the emperor, 2 upon your being appointed consul

1 Those families were styled patrician whose ancestors had been members of the
senate in the earliest times of the regal or consular government. M.

2 Trajan.

LETTERS 293

elect. 3 It is easy to find copies, not so easy to choose out of them; for
his virtues afford such abundant material. However, I will write and
give you my opinion, or (what I should prefer) I will let you have
it in person, after having laid before you the difficulties which occur
to me. I am doubtful, then, whether I should advise you to pursue
the method which I observed myself on the same occasion. When I
was consul elect, I avoided running into the usual strain of compli-
ment, which, however far from adulation, might yet look like it.
Not that I affected firmness and independence, but as well knowing
the sentiments of our amiable prince, and being thoroughly per-
suaded that the highest praise I could offer to him would be to shew
the world I was under no necessity of paying him any. When I
reflected what profusion of honours had been heaped upon the very
worst of his predecessors, nothing, I imagined, could more distin-
guish a prince of his real virtues from those infamous emperors than
to address him in a different manner. And this I thought proper to
observe in my speech, lest it might be suspected I passed ovex his
glorious acts, not out of judgment, but inattention. Such was the
method I then observed; but I am sensible the same measures are
neither agreeable nor indeed suitable to all alike. Besides, the
propriety of doing or omitting a thing depends not only upon per-
sons, but time and circumstances; and as the late actions of our
illustrious prince afford materials for panegyric, no less just than
recent and glorious, I doubt (as I said before) whether I should
persuade you in the present instance to adopt the same plan as I did
myself. In this, however, I am clear, that it was proper to offer you
by way of advice the method I pursued. Farewell.

LXX

To FABATUS

I HAVE the best reason, certainly, for celebrating your birthday as
my own, since all the happiness of mine arises from yours, to whose
care and diligence it is owing that I am gay here and at my ease in

3 The consuls, though they were chosen in August, did not enter upon their office
till the first of January, during which interval they were styled consules designati,
consuls elect. It was usual for them upon that occasion to compliment the emperor,
by whose appointment, after the dissolution of the republican government, they were
chosen. M.

294 PLINY

town. Your Camillian villa l in Campania has suffered by the
injuries of time, and is falling into decay; however, the most valuable
parts of the building either remain entire or are but slightly damaged,
and it shall be my care to see it put into thorough repair. Though I
flatter myself I have many friends, yet I have scarcely any of the
sort you enquire after, and which the affair you mention demands.
All mine lie among those whose employments engage them in
town; whereas the conduct of country business requires a person
of a robust constitution, and bred up to the country, to whom the
work may not seem hard, nor the office beneath him, and who does
not feel a solitary life depressing. You think most highly of Rufus,
for he was a great friend of your son's; but of what use he can be to
us upon this occasion, I cannot conceive; though I am sure he will
be glad to do all he can for us. Farewell.

LXXI

To CORNELIANUS

I RECEIVED lately the most exquisite satisfaction at Centumcellae 2
(as it is now called), being summoned thither by Caesar 3 to attend
a council. Could anything indeed afford a higher pleasure than to
see the emperor exercising his justice, his wisdom, and his affability,
even in retirement, where those virtues are most observable? Various
were the points brought in judgment before him, and which proved,
in so many different instances, the excellence of the judge. The
cause of Claudius Ariston came on first. He is an Ephesian noble-
man, of great munificence and unambitious popularity, whose virtues
have rendered him obnoxious to a set of people of far different
characters; they had instigated an informer against him, of the same
infamous stamp with themselves; but he was honourably acquitted.
The next day, the case of Galitta, accused of adultery, was heard.
Her husband, who is a military tribune, was upon the point of
offering himself as a candidate for certain honours at Rome, but she
had stained her own good name and his by an intrigue with a
centurion. 4 The husband informed the consul's lieutenant, who

1 So called, because it formerly belonged to Camillus. M.

4 An officer in the Roman legions, answerihg in some sort to a captain in our
companies. M. 2 Civita Vecchia. 3 Trajan.

LETTERS 295

wrote to the emperor about it. Caesar, having thoroughly sifted the
evidence, cashiered the centurion, and sentenced him to banishment.
It remained that some penalty should be inflicted likewise upon the
other party, as it is a crime of which both must necessarily be equally
guilty. But the husband's affection for his wife inclined him to
drop that part of the prosecution, not without some reflections on
his forbearance; for he continued to live with her even after he had
commenced this prosecution, content, it would seem, with having
removed his rival. But he was ordered to proceed in the suit; and,
though he complied with great reluctance, it was necessary, neverthe-
less, that she should be condemned. Accordingly, she was sentenced
to the punishment directed by the Julian law. 5 The emperor thought
proper to specify, in his decree, the name and office of the centurion,
that it might appear he passed it in virtue of military discipline; lest
it should be imagined he claimed a particular cognizance in every
cause of the same nature. The third day was employed in examining
into an affair which had occasioned a good deal of talk and various
reports; it was concerning the codicils of Julius Tiro, part of which
was plainly genuine, while the other part, it was alleged, was
forged. The persons accused of this fraud were Sempronius Senecio,
a Roman knight, and Eurythmus, Caesar's freedman and procurator. 6
The heirs jointly petitioned the emperor, when he was in Dacia, 7
that he would reserve to himself the trial of this cause; to which
he consented. On his return from that expedition, he appointed a
day for the hearing; and when some of the heirs, as though out of
respect to Eurythmus, offered to withdraw the suit, the emperor
nobly replied, "He is not Polycletus, 8 nor am I Nero." However, he
indulged the petitioners with an adjournment, and the time being
expired, he now sat to hear the cause. Two of the heirs appeared,
and desired that either their whole number might be compelled to
plead, as they had all joined in the information, or that they also
might have leave to withdraw. Caesar delivered his opinion with
great dignity and moderation; and when the counsel on the part of

5 This law was made by Augustus Czsar; but it nowhere clearly appears what was
the peculiar punishment it inflicted. M.

6 An officer employed by the emperor to receive and regulate the public revenue in
the provinces. M.

7 Comprehending Transylvania, Moldavia, and Walachia. M.

8 Polycletus was a freedman, and great favourite of Nero. M.

296 PLINY

Senecio and Eurythmus had represented that unless their clients
were heard, they would remain under the suspicion of guilt, "I am
not concerned," said the emperor, "what suspicions they may lie
under, it is I that am suspected"; and then turning to us, "Advise
me," said he, "how to act in this affair, for you see they complain
when allowed to withdraw their suit." At length, by the advice of
the counsel, he ordered notice to be given to the heirs that they
should either proceed with the case or each of them justify their
reasons for not doing so; otherwise that he would pass sentence
upon them as calumniators. 9 Thus you see how usefully and
seriously we spent our time, which, however, was diversified with
amusements of the most agreeable kind. We were every day invited
to Caesar's table, which, for so great a prince, was spread with much
plainness and simplicity. There we were either entertained with
interludes or passed the night in the most pleasing conversation.
When we took our leave of him the last day, he made each of us
presents; so studiously polite is Caesar! As for myself, I was not only
charmed with the dignity and wisdom of the judge, the honour done
to the assessors, the ease and unreserved freedom of our social inter-
course, but with the exquisite situation of the place itself. This
delightful villa is surrounded by the greenest meadows, and over-
looks the shore, which bends inwards, forming a complete harbour.
The left arm of this port is defended by exceedingly strong works,
while the right is in process of completion. An artificial island,
which rises at the mouth of the harbour, breaks the force of the
waves, and afTords a safe passage to ships on either side. This island
is formed by a process worth seeing: stones of a most enormous
size are transported hither in a large sort of pontoons and, being
piled one upon the other, are fixed by their own weight, gradually
accumulating in the manner, as it were, of a natural mound. It
already lifts its rocky back above the ocean, while the waves which
beat upon it, being broken and tossed to an immense height, foam
with a prodigious noise, and whiten all the surrounding sea. To

9 Memmius, or Rhcmmius (the critics are not agreed which), was author of a
law by which it was enacted that whosoever was convicted of calumny and false
accusation should be stigmatized with a mark in his forehead; and by the law of the
twelve tables, false accusers were to suffer the same punishment as would have been
inflicted upon the person unjustly accused if the crime had been proved. M.

LETTERS 297

these stones are added wooden piers, which in process of time will
give it the appearance of a natural island. This haven is to be
called by the name of its great author, 10 and will prove of infinite
benefit, by affording a secure retreat to ships on that extensive and
dangerous coast. Farewell.

LXXII

To MAXIMUS

You did perfectly right in promising a gladiatorial combat to our
good friends the citizens of Verona, who have long loved, looked
up to, and honoured you; while it was from that city too you
received that amiable object of your most tender affection, your
late excellent wife. And since you owed some monument or public
representation to her memory, what other spectacle could you have
exhibited more appropriate to the occasion? Besides, you were so
unanimously pressed to do so that to have refused would have
looked more like hardness than resolution. The readiness too with
which you granted their petition, and the magnificent manner in
which you performed it, is very much to your honour; for a great-
ness of soul is seen in these smaller instances, as well as in matters
of higher moment. I wish the African panthers, which you had
largely provided for this purpose, had arrived on the day appointed,
but though they were delayed by the stormy weather, the obligation
to you is equally the same, since it was not your fault that they were
not exhibited. Farewell.

LXXIII
To RESTITUTUS

THIS obstinate illness of yours alarms me; and though I know
how extremely temperate you are, yet I fear lest your disease should
get the better of your moderation. Let me entreat you then to resist
it with a determined abstemiousness: a remedy, be assured, of all
others the most laudable as well as the most salutary. Human
nature itself admits the practicability of what I recommend: it is a

10 Trajan.

298 PLINY

rule, at least, which I always enjoin my family to observe with
respect to myself. "I hope," I say to them, "that should I be attacked
with any disorder, I shall desire nothing of which I ought either to
be ashamed or have reason to repent; however, if my distemper
should prevail over my resolution, I forbid that anything be given
me but by the consent of my physicians; and I shall resent your
compliance with me in things improper as much as another man
would their refusal." I once had a most violent fever; when the fit
was a little abated, and I had been anointed, 1 my physician offered
me something to drink; I held out my hand, desiring he would first
feel my pulse, and upon his not seeming quite satisfied, I instantly
returned the cup, though it was just at my lips. Afterwards, when I
was preparing to go into the bath, twenty days from the first attack
of my illness, perceiving the physicians whispering together, I
enquired what they were saying. They replied they were of opinion
I might possibly bathe with safety; however, that they were not
without some suspicion of risk. "What need is there," said I, "of my
taking a bath at all?" And so, with perfect calmness and tranquillity,
I gave up a pleasure I was upon the point of enjoying, and abstained
from the bath as serenely and composedly as though I were going
into it. I mention this, not only by way of enforcing my advice by
example, but also that this letter may be a sort of tie upon me to
persevere in the same resolute abstinence for the future. Farewell.

LXXIV
To CALPURNIA 2

You will not believe what a longing for you possesses me. The
chief cause of this is my love; and then we have not grown used to
be apart. So it comes to pass that I lie awake a great part of the
night, thinking of you; and that by day, when the hours return
at which I was wont to visit you, my feet take me, as it is so truly
said, to your chamber, but not finding you there, I return, sick and
sad at heart, like an excluded lover. The only time that is free from

1 Unction was much esteemed and prescribed by the ancients. Celsus expressly
recommends it in the remission of acute distempers :"ungi lenitcrque pertractari corpus,
etiam in acutls ft recentibus morbis oportet; in rcmissione lumen," Sac. Celsi Med. ed.
Almeloveen, p. 88. M. z His wife.

LETTERS 299

these torments is when I am being worn out at the bar, and in the
suits of my friends. Judge you what must be my life when I find
my repose in toil, my solace in wretchedness and anxiety. Farewell.

LXXV
To MACRINUS

A VERY singular and remarkable accident has happened in the
affair of Varenus, the result of which is yet doubtful. The Bithyni-
ans, it is said, have dropped their prosecution of him, being con-
vinced at last that it was rashly undertaken. A deputy from that
province is arrived, who has brought with him a decree of their
assembly; copies of which he has delivered to Caesar, 1 and to several
of the leading men in Rome, and also to us, the advocates for
Varenus. Magnus, 2 nevertheless, whom I mentioned in my last
letter to you, persists in his charge, to support which he is incessantly
teasing the worthy Nigrinus. This excellent person was counsel for
him in his former petition to the consuls, that Varenus might be
compelled to produce his accounts. Upon this occasion, as I attended
Varenus merely as a friend, I determined to be silent. I thought it
highly imprudent for me, as I was appointed his counsel by the
senate, to attempt to defend him as an accused person, when it was
his business to insist that there was actually no charge subsisting
against him. However, when Nigrinus had finished his speech, the
consuls turning their eyes upon me, I rose up, and "When you
shall hear," I said, "what the real deputies from the province have to
object against the motion of Nigrinus, you will see that my silence
was not without just reason." Upon this Nigrinus asked me, "To
whom are these deputies sent?" I replied, "To me among others; I
have the decree of the province in my hands." He returned, "That
is a point which, though it may be clear to you, I am not so well
satisfied of." To this I answered, "Though it may not be so evident
to you, who are concerned to support the accusation, it may be
perfectly clear to me, who am on the more favourable side." Then
Polyaenus, the deputy from the province, acquainted the senate with
the reasons for superseding the prosecution, but desired it might be

1 Trajan. 2 One of the Bithynians employed to manage the trial. M.

30O PLINY

without prejudice to Caesar's determination. Magnus answered him;
Polyamus replied; as for myself, I only now and then threw in a
word, observing in general a complete silence. For I have learned
that upon some occasions it is as much an orator's business to be
silent as to speak, and I remember, in some criminal cases, to have
done even more service to my clients by a discreet silence than I
could have expected from the most carefully prepared speech. To
enter into the subject of eloquence is indeed very foreign to the
purpose of my letter, yet allow me to give you one instance in proof
of my last observation. A certain lady, having lost her son, suspected
that his freedmen, whom he had appointed coheirs with her, were
guilty of forging the will and poisoning him. Accordingly she
charged them with the fact before the emperor, who directed Juli-
anus Suburanus to try the cause. I was counsel for the defendants,
and the case being exceedingly remarkable, and the counsel engaged
on both sides of eminent ability, it drew together a very numerous
audience. The issue was, the servants being put to the torture, my
clients were acquitted. But the mother applied a second time to the
emperor, pretending she had discovered some new evidence. Sub-
uranus was therefore directed to hear the cause, and see if she could
produce any fresh proofs. Julius Africanus was counsel for the
mother, a young man of good parts, but slender experience. He is
grandson to the famous orator of that name, of whom it is reported
that Passienus Crispus, hearing him one day plead, archly said, "Very
fine, I must confess, very fine; but is all this fine speaking to the
purpose?" Julius Africanus, I say, having made a long harangue,
and exhausted the portion of time allotted to him, said, "I beg you,
Suburanus, to allow me to add one word more." When he had con-
cluded, and the eyes of the whole assembly had been fixed a consid-
erable time upon me, I rose up. "I would have answered Africanus,"
said I, "if he had added that one word he begged leave to do, in
which I doubt not he would have told us all that we had not heard
before." I do not remember to have gained so much applause by any
speech that I ever made as I did in this instance by making none.
Thus the little that I had hitherto said for Varenus was received
with the same general approbation. The consuls, agreeably to the
request of Polyamus, reserved the whole affair for the determination

LETTERS 3OI

of the emperor, whose resolution I impatiently wait for; as that will
decide whether I may be entirely secure and easy with respect to
Varenus, or must again renew all my trouble and anxiety upon his
account. Farewell.

LXXVI
To Tuscus

You desire my opinion as to the method of study you should
pursue, in that retirement to which you have long since withdrawn.
In the first place, then, I look upon it as a very advantageous practice
(and it is what many recommend) to translate either from Greek
into Latin or from Latin into Greek. By this means you acquire
propriety and dignity of expression, and a variety of beautiful figures,
and an ease and strength of exposition, and in the imitation of the
best models a facility of creating such models for yourself. Besides,
those things which you may possibly have overlooked in an ordinary
reading over cannot escape you in translating: and this method will
also enlarge your knowledge, and improve your judgment. It may
not be amiss, after you have read an author, to turn, as it were, to
his rival, and attempt something of your own upon the same topic,
and then make a careful comparison between your performance
and his, in order to see in what points either you or he may be the
happier. You may congratulate yourself indeed if you shall find in
some things that you have the advantage of him, while it will be a
great mortification if he is always superior. You may sometimes
select very famous passages and compete with what you select. The
competition is daring enough, but, as it is private, cannot be called
impudent. Not but that we have seen instances of persons who have
publicly entered this sort of lists with great credit to themselves, and,
while they did not despair of overtaking, have gloriously outstripped
those whom they thought it sufficient honour to follow. A speech
no longer fresh in your memory, you may take up again. You will
find plenty in it to leave unaltered, but still more to reject; you will
add a new thought here, and alter another there. It is a laborious
and tedious task, I own, thus to re-enflame the mind after the first
heat is over, to recover an impulse when its force has been checked

302 PLINY

and spent, and, worse than all, to put new limbs into a body already
complete without disturbing the old; but the advantage attending
this method will overbalance the difficulty. I know the bent of your
present attention is directed towards the eloquence of the bar; but
I would not for that reason advise you never to quit the polemic,
if I may so call it, and contentious style. As land is improved by
sowing it with various seeds, constantly changed, so is the mind by
exercising it now with this subject of study, now with that. I would
recommend you, therefore, sometimes to take a subject from history,
and you might give more care to the composition of your letters.
For it frequently happens that in pleading one has occasion to make
use not only of historical, but even poetical, styles of description; and
then from letters you acquire a concise and simple mode of expres-
sion. You will do quite right again in refreshing yourself with
poetry: when I say so, I do not mean that species of poetry which
turns upon subjects of great length and continuity {such being suit-
able only for persons of leisure), but those little pieces of the sprightly
kind of poesy, which serve as proper reliefs to, and are consistent
with, employments of every sort. They commonly go under the
title of poetical amusements; but these amusements have sometimes
gained their authors as much reputation as works of a more serious
nature; and thus (for while I am exhorting you to poetry, why
should I not turn poet myself?),

"As yielding wax the artist's skill commands,
Submissive shap'd beneath his forming hands;
Now dreadful stands in arms a Mars confest;
Or now with Venus' softer air imprest;
A wanton Cupid now the mould belies;
Now shines, severely chaste, a Pallas wife:
As not alone to quench the raging flame,
The sacred fountain pours her friendly stream;
But sweetly gliding through the flow'ry green,
Spreads glad refreshment o'er the smiling scene:
So, form'd by science, should the ductile mind
Receive, distinct, each various art refin'd."

In this manner the greatest men, as well as the greatest orators, used
either to exercise or amuse themselves, or rather indeed did both.
It is surprising how much the mind is enlivened and refreshed by

LETTERS 303

these little poetical compositions, as they turn upon love, hatred,
satire, tenderness, politeness, and everything, in short, that concerns
life and the affairs of the world. Besides, the same advantage
attends these, as every other sort of poems, that we turn from them
to prose with so much the more pleasure after having experienced
the difficulty of being constrained and fettered by metre. And now,
perhaps, I have troubled you upon this subject longer than you
desired; however, there is one thing I have left out: I have not told
you what kind of authors you should read; though indeed that was
sufficiently implied when I told you on what you should write.
Remember to be careful in your choice of authors of every kind : for,
as it has been well observed, "though we should read much, we
should not read many books." Who those authors are, is so clearly
settled, and so generally known, that I need not particularly specify
them; besides, I have already extended this letter to such an im-
moderate length that, while suggesting how you ought to study, I
have, I fear, been actually interrupting your studies. I will here
resign you therefore to your tablets, either to resume the studies
in which you were before engaged or to enter upon some of those
I have recommended. Farewell.

LXXVII
To FABATUS (His WIFE'S GRANDFATHER)

You are surprised, I find, that my share of five-twelfths of the
estate which lately fell to me, and which I had directed to be sold
to the best bidder, should have been disposed of by my freedman
Hermes to Corellia (without putting it up to auction) at the rate of
seven hundred thousand sesterces 1 for the whole. And as you think
it might have fetched nine hundred thousand, 2 you are so much the
more desirous to know whether I am inclined to ratify what he has
done. I am; and listen, while I tell you why, for I hope that not
only you will approve, but also that my fellow-coheirs will excuse
me for having, upon a motive of superior obligation, separated my
interest from theirs. I have the highest esteem for Corellia, both as
the sister of Rufus, whose memory will always be a sacred one to me,

1 About $28,000. 2 About $36,000.

304 PLINY

and as my mother's intimate friend. Besides, that excellent man,
Minutius Tuscus, her husband, has every claim to my affection
that a long friendship can give him; as there was likewise the
closest intimacy between her son and me, so much so indeed that
I fixed upon him to preside at the games which I exhibited when I
was elected praetor. This lady, when I was last in the country,
expressed a strong desire for some place upon the borders of our
lake of Comum; I therefore made her an offer, at her own price, of
any part of my land there, except what came to me from my father
and mother; for that I could not consent to part with, even to
Corellia, and accordingly when the inheritance in question fell to
me, I wrote to let her know it was to be sold. This letter I sent by
Hermes, who, upon her requesting him that he would immediately
make over to her my proportion of it, consented. Am I not then
obliged to confirm what my freedman has thus done in pursuance
of my inclinations? I have only to entreat my fellow-coheirs that
they will not take it ill at my hands that I have made a separate sale
of what I had certainly a right to dispose of. They are not bound in
any way to follow my example, since they have not the same con-
nections with Corellia. They are at full liberty therefore to be
guided by interest, which in my own case I chose to sacrifice to
friendship. Farewell.

LXXVIII

To CORELLIA

You are truly generous to desire and insist that I take for my
share of the estate you purchased of me, not after the rate of seven
hundred thousand sesterces for the whole, as my freedman sold it
to you; but in the proportion of nine hundred thousand, agreeably
lo what you gave to the farmers of the twentieths for their part. But
I must desire and insist in my turn that you would consider not only
what is suitable to your character, but what is worthy of mine; and
that you would suffer me to oppose your inclination in this
single instance, with the same warmth that I obey it in all others.
Farewell.

LETTERS 305

LXXIX

To CELER

EVERY author has his particular reasons for reciting his works;
mine, I have often said, are, in order, if any error should have
escaped my own observation (as no doubt they do escape it some-
times), to have it pointed out to me. I cannot therefore but be
surprised to find (what your letter assures me) that there are some
who blame me for reciting my speeches : unless, perhaps, they are of
opinion that this is the single species of composition that ought to be
held exempt from any correction. If so, I would willingly ask them
why they allow (if indeed they do allow) that history may be recited,
since it is a work which ought to be devoted to truth, not ostenta-
tion ? or why tragedy, as it is composed for action and the stage, not
for being read to a private audience? or lyric poetry, as it is not a
reader, but a chorus of voices and instruments that it requires?
They will reply, perhaps, that in the instances referred to, custom
has made the practice in question usual: I should be glad to know,
then, if they think the person who first introduced this practice is
to be condemned? Besides, the rehearsal of speeches is no unprec-
edented thing either with us or the Grecians. Still, perhaps, they
will insist that it can answer no purpose to recite a speech which has
already been delivered. True, if one were immediately to repeat the
very same speech word for word, and to the very same audience; but
if you make several additions and alterations; if your audience is
composed partly of the same, and partly of different persons, and the
recital is at some distance of time, why is there less propriety in
rehearsing your speech than in publishing it? "But it is difficult,"
the objectors urge, "to give satisfaction to an audience by the mere
recital of a speech"; that is a consideration which concerns the par-
ticular skill and pains of the person who rehearses, but by no means
holds good against recitation in general. The truth is, it is not whilst
I am reading, but when I am read, that I aim at approbation; and
upon this principle I omit no sort of correction. In the first place, I
frequently go carefully over what I have written, by myself; after
this I read it out to two or three friends, and then give it to others

306 PLINY

to make their remarks. If after this I have any doubt concerning
the justness of their observations, I carefully weigh them again with
a friend or two; and, last of all, I recite them to a larger audience;
then is the time, believe me, when I correct most energetically and
unsparingly; for my care and attention rise in proportion to my
anxiety; as nothing renders the judgment so acute to detect error as
that deference, modesty, and diffidence one feels upon those occa-
sions. For tell me, would you not be infinitely less affected were
you to speak before a single person only, though ever so learned,
than before a numerous assembly, even though composed of none
but illiterate people ? When you rise up to plead, are you not at that
juncture, above all others, most self-distrustf ul ? and do you not wish,
I will not say some particular parts only, but that the whole arrange-
ment of your intended speech were altered? especially if the con-
course should be large in which you are to speak ? for there is some-
thing even in a low and vulgar audience that strikes one with awe.
And if you suspect you are not well received at the first opening of
your speech, do you not find all your energy relaxed, and feel yourself
ready to give way ? The reason I imagine to be that there is a certain
weight of collective opinion in a multitude, and although each
individual judgment is, perhaps, of little value, yet when united it be-
comes considerable. Accordingly, Pomponius Secundus, the famous
tragic poet, whenever some very intimate friend and he differed
about the retaining or rejecting anything in his writings, used to
say, "I appeal 1 to the people"; and thus, by their silence or applause,
adopted either his own or his friend's opinion; such was the defer-
ence he paid to the popular judgment! Whether justly or not, is no
concern of mine, as I am not in the habit of reciting my works
publicly, but only to a select circle, whose presence I respect, and
whose judgment I value; in a word, whose opinions I attend to as
if they were so many individuals I had separately consulted, at the
same time that I stand in as much awe before them as I should before
the most numerous assembly. What Cicero says of composing will,

1 There is a kind of witticism in this expression, which will be lost to the mere
English reader, unless he be informed that the Romans had a privilege, confirmed to
them by several laws which passed in the earlier ages of the republic, of appealing
from the decisions of the magistrates to the general assembly of the people: and they
did so in the form of words which Pomponius here applies to a different purpose. M.

LETTERS 307

in my opinion, hold true of the dread we have of the public : "Fear
is the most rigid critic imaginable." The very thought of reciting,
the very entrance into an assembly, and the agitated concern when
one is there; each of these circumstances tends to improve and perfect
an author's performance. Upon the whole, therefore, I cannot repent
of a practice which I have found by experience so exceedingly use-
ful; and am so far from being discouraged by the trifling objections
of these censors that I request you would point out to me if there
is yet any other kind of correction, that I may also adopt it; for
nothing can sufficiently satisfy my anxiety to render my composi-
tions perfect. I reflect what an undertaking it is, resigning any work
into the hands of the public; and I cannot but be persuaded that
frequent revisals, and many consultations, must go to the perfecting
of a performance, which one desires should universally and for ever
please. Farewell.

LXXX
To PRISCUS

THE illness of my friend Fannia gives me great concern. She con-
tracted it during her attendance on Junia, one of the Vestal Virgins,
engaging in this good office at first voluntarily, Junia being her
relation, and afterwards being appointed to it by an order from the
college of priests : for these virgins, when excessive ill health renders
it necessary to remove them from the temple of Vesta, are always
delivered over to the care and custody of some venerable matron.
It was owing to her assiduity in the execution of this charge that
she contracted her present dangerous disorder, which is a continual
fever, attended with a cough that increases daily. She is extremely
emaciated, and every part of her seems in a total decay except her
spirits: those, indeed, she fully keeps up; and in a way altogether
worthy the wife of Helvidius, and the daughter of Thrasea. In all
other respects there is such a falling away that I am more than
apprehensive upon her account; I am deeply afflicted. I grieve, my
friend, that so excellent a woman is going to be removed from the
eyes of the world, which will never, perhaps, again behold her equal.
So pure she is, so pious, so wise and prudent, so brave and steadfast!

308 PLINY

Twice she followed her husband into exile, and the third time she
was banished herself upon his account. For Senecio, when arraigned
for writing the life of Helvidius, having said in his defence that he
composed that work at the request of Fannia, Metius Carus, with a
stern and threatening air, asked her whether she had made that
request, and she replied, "I made it." Did she supply him likewise
with materials for the purpose? "I did." Was her mother privy to
this transaction? "She was not." In short, throughout her whole
examination, not a word escaped her which betrayed the smallest
fear. On the contrary, she had preserved a copy of those very
books which the senate, overawed by the tyranny of the times, had
ordered to be suppressed, and at the same time the effects of the
author to be confiscated, and carried with her into exile the very
cause of her exile. How pleasing she is, how courteous, and (what is
granted to few) no less lovable than worthy of all esteem and ad-
miration! Will she hereafter be pointed out as a model to all wives;
and perhaps be esteemed worthy of being set forth as an example
of fortitude even to our sex; since, while we still have the pleasure
of seeing and conversing with her, we contemplate her with the
same admiration, as those heroines who are celebrated in ancient
story? For myself, I confess, I cannot but tremble for this illustrious
house, which seems shaken to its very foundations, and ready to fall;
for though she will leave descendants behind her, yet what a height
of virtue must they attain, what glorious deeds must they perform,
ere the world will be persuaded that she was not the last of her
family! It is an additional affliction and anguish to me that by her
death I seem to lose her mother a second time; that worthy mother
(and what can I say higher in her praise?) of so noble a woman!
who, as she was restored to me in her daughter, so she will now
again be taken from me, and the loss of Fannia will thus pierce my
heart at once with a fresh, and at the same time reopened, wound.
I so truly loved and honoured them both, that I know not which
I loved the best; a point they desired might ever remain unde-
termined. In their prosperity and their adversity I did them every
kindness in my power, and was their comforter in exile, as well as
their avenger at their return. But I have not yet paid them what I

LETTERS 309

owe, and am so much the more solicitous for the recovery of this
lady, that I may have time to discharge my debt to her. Such is the
anxiety and sorrow under which I write this letter! But if some
divine power should happily turn it into joy, I shall not complain
of the alarms I now suffer. Farewell.

LXXXI

To GEMINIUS

NUMIDIA QUADRATILLA is dead, having almost reached her
eightieth year. She enjoyed, up to her last illness, uninterrupted
good health, and was unusually stout and robust for one of her sex.
She has left a very prudent will, having disposed of two-thirds of
her estate to her grandson, and the rest to her granddaughter. The
young lady I know very slightly, but the grandson is one of my
most intimate friends. He is a remarkable young man, and his
merit entitles him to the affection of a relation, even where his blood
does not. Notwithstanding his remarkable personal beauty, he
escaped every malicious imputation both whilst a boy and when a
youth: he was a husband at four-and-twenty, and would have been
a father if Providence had not disappointed his hopes. He lived in
the family with his grandmother, who was exceedingly devoted to
the pleasures of the town, yet observed great severity of conduct
himself, while always perfectly deferential and submissive to her.
She retained a set of pantomimes, and was an encourager of this class
of people to a degree inconsistent with one of her sex and rank.
But Quadratus never appeared at these entertainments, whether
she exhibited them in the theatre or in her own house; nor indeed
did she require him to be present. I once heard her say, when she
was recommending to me the supervision of her grandson's studies,
that it was her custom, in order to pass away some of those unem-
ployed hours with which female life abounds, to amuse herself with
playing at chess, or seeing the mimicry of her pantomimes; but
that, whenever she engaged in either of those amusements, she
constantly sent away her grandson to his studies: she appeared to
me to act thus as much out of reverence for the youth as from affec-

310 PLINY

tion. I was a good deal surprised, as I am sure you will be too, at
what he told me the last time the Pontifical games 1 were exhibited.
As we were coming out of the theatre together, where we had been
entertained with a show of these pantomimes, "Do you know," said
he, "to-day is the first time I ever saw my grandmother's freedman
dance?" Such was the grandson's speech! while a set of men of a
far different stamp, in order to do honour to Quadratilla (I am
ashamed to call it honour}, were running up and down the theatre,
pretending to be struck with the utmost admiration and rapture at
the performances of those pantomimes, and then imitating in
musical chant the mien and manner of their lady patroness. But
now all the reward they have got, in return for their theatrical per-
formances, is just a few trivial legacies, which they have the mortifi-
cation to receive from an heir who was never so much as present at
these shows. I send you this account, knowing you do not dislike
hearing town news, and because, too, when any occurrence has
given me pleasure, I love to renew it again by relating it. And indeed
this instance of affection in Quadratilla, and the honour done therein
to that excellent youth, her grandson, has afforded me a very sensible
satisfaction; as I extremely rejoice that the house which once
belonged to Cassius, 2 the founder and chief of the Cassian school, is
come into the possession of one no less considerable than its former
master. For my friend will fill it and become it as he ought, and its
ancient dignity, lustre, and glory will again revive under Quadratus,
who, I am persuaded, will prove as eminent an orator as Cassius was
a lawyer. Farewell.

LXXXII
To MAXIMUS

THE lingering disorder of a friend of mine gave me occasion lately
to reflect that we are never so good as when oppressed with illness.
Where is the sick man who is either solicited by avarice or inflamed
with lust ? At such a season he is neither a slave of love nor the fool

1 The priests, as well as other magistrates, exhibited public games to the people
when they entered upon their office. A/.

2 A famous lawyer who flourished in the reign of the emperor Claudius: those
who followed his opinions were said to be Cassians, or of the school of Cassius. M.

LETTERS 311

of ambition; wealth he utterly disregards, and is content with ever so
small a portion of it, as being upon the point of leaving even that
little. It is then he recollects there are gods, and that he himself is but
a man: no mortal is then the object of his envy, his admiration, or
his contempt; and the tales of slander neither raise his attention
nor feed his curiosity: his dreams are only of baths and fountains.
These are the supreme objects of his cares and wishes, while he
resolves, if he should recover, to pass the remainder of his days in
ease and tranquillity, that is, to live innocently and happily. I may
therefore lay down to you and myself a short rule, which the
philosophers have endeavoured to inculcate at the expense of many
words, and even many volumes; that "we should try and realize in
health those resolutions we form in sickness." Farewell.

LXXXIII
To SURA

THE present recess from business we are now enjoying affords you
leisure to give, and me to receive, instruction. I am extremely
desirous therefore to know whether you believe in the existence of
ghosts, and that they have a real form, and are a sort of divinities,
or only the visionary impressions of a terrified imagination. What
particularly inclines me to believe in their existence is a story which
I heard of Curtius Rufus. When he was in low circumstances and
unknown in the world, he attended the governor of Africa into that
province. One evening, as he was walking in the public portico,
there appeared to him the figure of a woman, of unusual size and
of beauty more than human. And as he stood there, terrified and
astonished, she told him she was the tutelary power that presided
over Africa, and was come to inform him of the future events of his
life: that he should go back to Rome, to enjoy high honours there,
and return to that province invested with the proconsular dignity,
and there should die. Every circumstance of this prediction actually
came to pass. It is said farther that upon his arrival at Carthage, as
he was coming out of the ship, the same figure met him upon the
shore. It is certain, at least, that being seized with a fit of illness,
though there were no symptoms in his case that led those about him

312 PLINY

to despair, he instantly gave up all hope of recovery; judging, appar-
ently, of the truth of the future part of the prediction by what had
already been fulfilled, and of the approaching misfortune from his
former prosperity. Now the following story, which I am going to
tell you just as I heard it, is it not more terrible than the former,
while quite as wonderful ? There was at Athens a large and roomy
house, which had a bad name, so that no one could live there. In
the dead of the night a noise, resembling the clashing of iron, was
frequently heard, which, if you listened more attentively, sounded
like the rattling of chains, distant at first, but approaching nearer by
degrees: immediately afterwards a spectre appeared in the form of
an old man, of extremely emaciated and squalid appearance, with
a long beard and dishevelled hair, rattling the chains on his feet
and hands. The distressed occupants meanwhile passed their wake-
ful nights under the most dreadful terrors imaginable. This, as it
broke their rest, ruined their health, and brought on distempers, their
terror grew upon them, and death ensued. Even in the daytime,
though the spirit did not appear, yet the impression remained so
strong upon their imaginations that it still seemed before their eyes,
and kept them in perpetual alarm. Consequently the house was at
length deserted, as being deemed absolutely uninhabitable; so that
it was now entirely abandoned to the ghost. However, in hopes that
some tenant might be found who was ignorant of this very alarming
circumstance, a bill was put up, giving notice that it was either to be
let or sold. It happened that Athenodorus, 1 the philosopher, came
to Athens at this time, and, reading the bill, enquired the price. The
extraordinary cheapness raised his suspicion; nevertheless, when he
heard the whole story, he was so far from being discouraged that
he was more strongly inclined to hire it, and, in short, actually did
so. When it grew towards evening, he ordered a couch to be pre-
pared for him in the front part of the house, and, after calling for
a light, together with his pencil and tablets, directed all his people to
retire. But that his mind might not, for want of employment, be
open to the vain terrors of imaginary noises and spirits, he applied
himself to writing with the utmost attention. The first part of the

1 A Stoic philosopher and native of Tarsus. He was tutor for some time to
Octavius, afterwards Augustus, Ca;sar.

LETTERS 313

night passed in entire silence, as usual; at length a clanking of iron
and rattling of chains was heard: however, he neither lifted up his
eyes nor laid down his pen, but, in order to keep calm and collected,
tried to pass the sounds off to himself as something else. The noise
increased and advanced nearer, till it seemed at the door, and at last
in the chamber. He looked up, saw, and recognized the ghost exactly
as it had been described to him : it stood before him, beckoning with
the finger, like a person who calls another. Athenodorus in reply
made a sign with his hand that it should wait a little, and threw his
eyes again upon his papers; the ghost then rattled its chains over the
head of the philosopher, who looked up upon this, and seeing it
beckoning as before, immediately arose, and, light in hand, followed
it. The ghost slowly stalked along, as if encumbered with its chains,
and, turning into the area of the house, suddenly vanished. Atheno-
dorus, being thus deserted, made a mark with some grass and leaves
on the spot where the spirit left him. The next day he gave informa-
tion to the magistrates, and advised them to order that spot to be dug
up. This was accordingly done, and the skeleton of a man in chains
was found there; for the body, having lain a considerable time in
the ground, was putrefied and mouldered away from the fetters. The
bones, being collected together, were publicly buried, and thus after
the ghost was appeased by the proper ceremonies, the house was
haunted no more. This story I believe upon the credit of others;
what I am going to mention, I give you upon my own. I have a
freedman named Marcus, who is by no means illiterate. One
night, as he and his younger brother were lying together, he fancied
he saw somebody upon his bed, who took out a pair of scissors, and
cut off the hair from the top part of his own head, and in the
morning, it appeared his hair was actually cut, and the clippings
lay scattered about the floor. A short time after this, an event of
a similar nature contributed to give credit to the former story. A
young lad of my family was sleeping in his apartment with the
rest of his companions, when two persons clad in white came in,
as he says, through the windows, cut off his hair as he lay, and
then returned the same way they entered. The next morning it
was found that this boy had been served just as the other, and
there was the hair again, spread about the room. Nothing re-

314 PLINY

markable indeed followed these events, unless perhaps that I es-
caped a prosecution, in which, if Domitian (during whose reign
this happened) had lived some time longer, I should certainly have
been involved. For after the death of that emperor, articles of
impeachment against me were found in his scrutore, which had
been exhibited by Carus. It may therefore be conjectured, since it
is customary for persons under any public accusation to let their
hair grow, this cutting off the hair of my servants was a sign I
should escape the imminent danger that threatened me. Let me
desire you then to give this question your mature consideration.
The subject deserves your examination; as, I trust, I am not myself
altogether unworthy a participation in the abundance of your
superior knowledge. And though you should, as usual, balance be-
tween two opinions, yet I hope you will lean more on one side
than on the other, lest, whilst I consult you in order to have my
doubt settled, you should dismiss me in the same suspense and
indecision that occasioned you the present application. Farewell.

LXXXIV
To SEPTITIUS

You tell me certain persons have blamed me in your company,
as being upon all occasions too lavish in the praise I give my friends.
I not only acknowledge the charge, but glory in it; for can there
be a nobler error than an overflowing benevolence? But still, who
are these, let me ask, that are better acquainted with my friends than
I am myself? Yet grant there are any such, why will they deny
me the satisfaction of so pleasing a mistake? For supposing my
friends not to deserve the highest encomiums I give them, yet I am
happy in believing they do. Let them recommend then this malig-
nant zeal to those (and their number is not inconsiderable) who
imagine they shew their judgment when they indulge their censure
upon their friends. As for myself, they will never be able to per-
suade me I can be guilty of an excess 1 in friendship. Farewell.

1 Balzac very prettily observes: "// y a des rivieres qtii ne font jatnais tant de bien
que quand dies se debordent; de metne, I'amitie n'a rien meilleur que I'exces." M.

LETTERS 315

LXXXV
To TACITUS

I PREDICT (and I am persuaded I shall not be deceived) that your
histories will be immortal. I frankly own therefore I so much the
more earnestly wish to find a place in them. If we are generally
careful to have our faces taken by the best artists, ought we not
to desire that our actions may be celebrated by an author of your
distinguished abilities? I therefore call your attention to the follow-
ing matter, which, though it cannot have escaped your notice, as
it is mentioned in the public journals, still I call your attention to,
that you may the more readily believe how agreeable it will be
to me that this action, greatly heightened by the risk which attended
it, should receive additional lustre from the testimony of a man of
your powers. The senate appointed Herennius Senecio, and myself,
counsel for the province of Baetica, in their impeachment of Baebius
Massa. He was condemned, and the house ordered his effects to
be seized into the hands of the public officer. Shortly after, Senecio,
having learnt that the consuls intended to sit to hear petitions,
came and said to me, "Let us go together, and petition them with
the same unanimity in which we executed the office which had
been enjoined us, not to suffer Massa's effects to be dissipated by
those who were appointed to preserve them." I answered, "As we
were counsel in this affair by order of the senate, I recommend it
to your consideration whether it would be proper for us, after
sentence passed, to interpose any farther." "You are at liberty,"
said he, "to prescribe what bounds you please to yourself, who
have no particular connections with the province, except what
arise from your late services to them; but then I was born there,
and enjoyed the post of quaestor among them." "If such," I replied,
"is your determined resolution, I am ready to accompany you, that
whatever resentment may be the consequence of this affair, it
may not fall singly upon yourself." We accordingly proceeded to
the consuls, where Senecio said what was pertinent to the affair,
and I added a few words to the same effect. Scarcely had we ended
when Massa, complaining that Senecio had not acted against him

PLINY

with the fidelity of an advocate, but the bitterness of an enemy,
desired he might be at liberty to prosecute him for treason. This
occasioned general consternation. Whereupon I rose up; "Most
noble consuls," said I, "I am afraid it should seem that Massa has
tacitly charged me with having favoured him in this cause, since
he did not think proper to join me with Senecio in the desired
prosecution." This short speech was immediately received with ap-
plause, and afterwards got much talked about everywhere. The
late emperor Nerva (who, though at that time in a private station,
yet interested himself in every meritorious action performed in
public) wrote a most impressive letter to me upon the occasion,
in which he not only congratulated me, but the age which had
produced an example so much in the spirit (as he was pleased
to call it) of the good old days. But, whatever be the actual fact,
it lies in your power to raise it into a grander and more conspicuously
illustrious position, though I am far from desiring you in the least
to exceed the bounds of reality. History ought to be guided by
strict truth, and worthy actions require nothing more. Farewell.

LXXXVI
To SEPTITIUS

I HAD a good journey here, excepting only that some of my servants
were upset by the excessive heat. Poor Encolpius, my reader, 1
who is so indispensable to me in my studies and amusements, was
so affected with the dust that it brought on a spitting of blood:
an accident which will prove no less unpleasant to me than un-
fortunate to himself, should he be thereby rendered unfit for the
literary work in which he so greatly excels. If that should unhappily
result, where shall I find one who will read my works so well, or
appreciate them so thoroughly, as he? Whose tones will my ears
drink in as they do his? But the gods seem to favour our better
hopes, as the bleeding is stopped, and the pain abated. Besides, he
is extremely temperate; while no concern is wanting on my part
or care on his physician's. This, together with the wholesomeness

1 Persons of rank and literature among the Romans retained in their families a
domestic whose sole business was to read to them. M.

LETTERS 317

of the air, and the quiet of retirement, gives us reason to expect that
the country will contribute as much to the restoration of his health
as to his rest. Farewell.

LXXXVII
To CALVISIUS

OTHER people visit their estates in order to recruit their purses;
whilst I go to mine only to return so much the poorer. I had sold
my vintage to the merchants, who were extremely eager to purchase
it, encouraged by the price it then bore, and what it was probable
it would rise to: however, they were disappointed in their expecta-
tions. Upon this occasion to have made the same general abatement
to all would have been much the easiest, though not so equitable a
method. Now I hold it particularly worthy of a man of honour
to be governed by principles of strict equity in his domestic as well
as public conduct; in little matters as in great ones; in his own
concerns as well as in those of others. And if every deviation from
rectitude is equally criminal, 1 every approach to it must be equally
praiseworthy. So accordingly I remitted to all in general one-eighth
part of the price they had agreed to give me, that none might go
away without some compensation: next, I particularly considered
those who had advanced the largest sums towards their purchase,
and done me so much the more service, and been greater sufferers
themselves. To those, therefore, whose purchase amounted to more
than ten thousand sesterces, 2 I returned (over and above that which
I may call the general and common eighth) a tenth part of what
they had paid beyond that sum. I fear I do not express myself
sufficiently clearly; I will endeavour to explain my meaning more
fully: for instance, suppose a man had purchased of me to the
value of fifteen thousand sesterces, 3 I remitted to him one-eighth
part of that whole sum, and likewise one-tenth of five thousand. 4
Besides this, as several had deposited, in different proportions, part
of the price they had agreed to pay, whilst others had advanced
nothing, I thought it would not be at all fair that all these should

1 It was a doctrine maintained by the Stoics that all crimes are equal. A/.
2 About $400. 3 About $600. 4 About $93.

PLINY

be favoured with the same undistinguished remission. To those,
therefore, who had made any payments, I returned a tenth part
upon the sums so paid. By this means I made a proper acknowledg-
ment to each, according to their respective deserts, and likewise
encouraged them, not only to deal with me for the future, but to
be prompt in their payments. This instance of my good nature
or my judgment (call it which you please) was a considerable
expense to me. However, I found my account in it; for all the
country greatly approved both of the novelty of these abatements
and the manner in which I regulated them. Even those whom I
did not "mete" (as they say) "by the same measure," but dis-
tinguished according to their several degrees, thought themselves
obliged to me, in proportion to the probity of their principles, and
went away pleased with having experienced that not with me

"The brave and mean an equal honour find." 5
Farewell.

LXXXVIII

To ROMANUS

HAVE you ever seen the source of the river Clitumnus? If you
have not (and I hardly think you can have seen it yet, or you
would have told me), go there as soon as possible. I saw it yesterday,
and I blame myself for not having seen it sooner. At the foot of a
little hill, well wooded with old cypress-trees, a spring gushes out,
which, breaking up into different and unequal streams, forms itself,
after several windings, into a large, broad basin of water, so trans-
parently clear that you may count the shining pebbles, and the
little pieces of money thrown into it, as they lie at the bottom.
From thence it is carried off not so much by the declivity of the
ground as by its own weight and exuberance. A mere stream at its
source, immediately, on quitting this, you find it expanded into a
broad river, fit for large vessels even, allowing a free passage by each
other, according as they sail with or against the stream. The current
runs so strong, though the ground is level, that the large barges
going down the river have no occasion to make use of their oars;

5 Horn. II. lib. ix., v. 319.

LETTERS 319

while those going up find it difficult to make headway even with the
assistance of oars and poles: and this alternate interchange of ease
and toil, according as you turn, is exceedingly amusing when one
sails up and down merely for pleasure. The banks are well covered
with ash and poplar, the shape and colour of the trees being as
clearly and distinctly reflected in the stream as if they were actually
sunk in it. The water is cold as snow, and as white too. Near it
stands an ancient and venerable temple, in which is placed the
river-god Clitumnus clothed in the usual robe of state; and indeed
the prophetic oracles here delivered sufficiently testify the imme-
diate presence of that divinity. Several little chapels are scattered
round, dedicated to particular gods, distinguished each by his own
peculiar name and form of worship, and some of them, too, presid-
ing over different fountains. For, besides the principal spring,
which is, as it were, the parent of all the rest, there are several
other lesser streams, which, taking their rise from various sources,
lose themselves in the river; over which a bridge is built that
separates the sacred part from that which lies open to common use.
Vessels are allowed to come above this bridge, but no person is
permitted to swim except below it. The Hispellates, to whom
Augustus gave this place, furnish a public bath, and likewise enter-
tain all strangers, at their own expense. Several villas, attracted by
the beauty of this river, stand about on its borders. In short, every
surrounding object will afford you entertainment. You may also
amuse yourself with numberless inscriptions upon the pillars and
walls, by different persons, celebrating the virtues of the fountain,
and the divinity that presides over it. Many of them you will
admire, while some will make you laugh; but I must correct myself
when I say so; you are too humane, I know, to laugh upon such an
occasion. Farewell.

LXXXIX
To ARISTO

As you are no less acquainted with the political laws of your
country (which include the customs and usages of the senate)
than with the civil, I am particularly desirous to have your opinion

32O PLINY

whether I was mistaken in an affair which lately came before the
house, or not. This I request, not with a view of being directed
in my judgment as to what is passed (for that is now too late),
but in order to know how to act in any possible future case of the
kind. You will ask, perhaps, "Why do you apply for information
concerning a point on which you ought to be well instructed?"
Because the tyranny of former reigns, 1 as it introduced a neglect
and ignorance of all other parts of useful knowledge, so particularly
of what relates to the customs of the senate; for who is there so
tamely industrious as to desire to learn what he can never have
an opportunity of putting in practice? Besides, it is not very easy
to retain even the knowledge one has acquired where no opportunity
of employing it occurs. Hence it was that Liberty, on her return, 2
found us totally ignorant and inexperienced; and thus in the
warmth of our eagerness to taste her sweets, we are sometimes
hurried on to action, ere we are well instructed how we ought to
act. But by the institution of our ancestors, it was wisely provided
that the young should learn from the old, not only by precept,
but by their own observation, how to behave in that sphere in which
they were one day themselves to move; while these, again, in their
turn, transmitted the same mode of instruction to their children.
Upon this principle it was that the youth were sent early into the
army, that by being taught to obey they might learn to command,
and, whilst they followed others, might be trained by degrees to
become leaders themselves. On the same principle, when they were
candidates for any office, they were obliged to stand at the door
of the senate-house, and were spectators of the public council before
they became members of it. The father of each youth was his
instructor upon these occasions, or if he had none, some person of
years and dignity supplied the place of a father. Thus they were
taught by that surest method of discipline, Example, how far the
right of proposing any law to the senate extended; what privileges
a senator had in delivering his opinion in the house; the power of
the magistrates in that assembly, and the rights of the rest of the
members; where it is proper to yield, and where to insist; when

1 Those of Nero and Domitian. M.
2 When Nerva and Trajan received the empire. M.

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and how long to speak, and when to be silent; how to make
necessary distinctions between contrary opinions, and how to im-
prove upon a former motion: in a word, they learnt by this means
every senatorial usage. As for myself, it is true, indeed, I served
in the army when I was a youth; but it was at a time when
courage was suspected, and want of spirit rewarded; when generals
were without authority, and soldiers without modesty; when there
was neither discipline nor obedience, but all was riot, disorder, and
confusion : in short, when it was happier to forget than to remember
what one learnt. I attended likewise in my youth the senate, but
a senate shrinking and speechless; where it was dangerous to utter
one's opinion, and mean and pitiable to be silent. What pleasure
was there in learning, or indeed what could be learnt, when the
senate was convened either to do nothing whatever or to give their
sanction to some consummate infamy! when they were assembled
either for cruel or ridiculous purposes, and when their deliberations
were never serious, though often sad! But I was not only a witness
to this scene of wretchedness, as a spectator; I bore my share of
it too as a senator, and both saw and suffered under it for many
years; which so broke and damped my spirits that they have not
even yet been able fully to recover themselves. It is within quite
recently (for all time seems short in proportion to its happiness)
that we could take any pleasure in knowing what relates to or in
setting about the duties of our station. Upon these considerations,
therefore, I may the more reasonably entreat you, in the first place,
to pardon my error (if I have been guilty of one), and, in the
next, to lead me out of it by your superior knowledge: for you
have always been diligent to examine into the constitution of your
country, both with respect to its public and private, its ancient and
modern, its general and special laws. I am persuaded, indeed, the
point upon which I am going to consult you is such an unusual
one that even those whose great experience in public business must
have made them, one would have naturally supposed, acquainted
with everything were either doubtful or absolutely ignorant upon
it. I shall be more excusable, therefore, if I happen to have been
mistaken; as you will earn the higher praise if you can set me
right in an affair which it is not clear has ever yet fallen within

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your observation. The enquiry then before the house was concerning
the freedmen of Afranius Dexter, who being found murdered,
it was uncertain whether he fell by his own hands, or by those of
his household; and if the latter, whether they committed the fact
in obedience to the commands of Afranius, or were prompted to
it by their own villainy. After they had been put to the question,
a certain senator (it is of no importance to mention his name, but
if you are desirous to know, it was myself) was for acquitting them;
another proposed that they should be banished for a limited time;
and a third that they should suffer death. These several opinions
were so extremely different that it was impossible either of them
could stand with the other. For what have death and banishment
in common with one another? Why, no more than banishment
and acquittal have together. Though an acquittal approaches rather
nearer a sentence of exile than a sentence of death does: for both
the former agree at least in this, that they spare life, whereas the
latter takes it away. In the meanwhile, those senators who were
for punishing with death, and those who proposed banishment,
sate together on the same side of the house: and thus by a present
appearance of unanimity suspended their real disagreement. I
moved, therefore, that the votes for each of the three opinions should
be separately taken, and that two of them should not, under favour
of a short truce between themselves, join against the third. I in-
sisted that such of the members who were for capital punishment
should divide from the others who voted for banishment; and that
these two distinct parties should not be permitted to form them-
selves into a body, in opposition to those who declared for acquittal,
when they would immediately after disunite again: for it was not
material that they agreed in disliking one proposal, since they
differed with respect to the other two. It seemed very extraordinary
that he who moved the freedmen should be banished, and the slaves
suffer death, should not be allowed to join these two in one motion,
but that each question should be ordered to be put to the house
separately; and yet that the vote of one who was for inflicting
capital punishment upon the freedmen should be taken together
with that of one who was for banishing them. For if, in the former
instance, it was reasonable that the motion should be divided,

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because it comprehended two distinct propositions, I could not see
why, in the latter case, suffrages so extremely different should be
thrown into the same scale. Permit me, then, notwithstanding the
point is already settled, to go over it again as if it were still undecided,
and to lay before you those reasons at my ease, which I offered to
the house in the midst of much interruption and clamour. Let us
suppose there had been only three judges appointed to hear this
cause, one of whom was of opinion that the parties in question
deserved death; the other that they should only be banished; and
the third that they ought to be acquitted: should the two former
unite their weight to overpower the latter, or should each be
separately balanced? For the first and second are no more com-
patible than the second and third. They ought therefore in the
same manner to be counted in the senate as contrary opinions,
since they were delivered as different ones. Suppose the same person
had moved that they should both have been banished and put to
death, could they possibly, in pursuance of this opinion, have suffered
both punishments? Or could it have been looked upon as one con-
sistent motion when it united two such different decisions? Why,
then, should the same opinion, when delivered by distinct persons,
be considered as one and entire, which would not be deemed so
if it were proposed by a single man? Does not the law manifestly
imply that a distinction is to be made between those who are for
a capital conviction, and those who are for banishment, in the very
form of words made use of when the house is ordered to divide?
You who are of such an opinion, come to this side; you who are
of any other, go over to the side of him whose opinion you follow,
Let us examine this form, and weigh every sentence: You who are
of this opinion: that is, for instance, you who are for banishment,
come on this side; namely, on the side of him who moved for
banishment. From whence it is clear he cannot remain on the side
of those who are for death. You who are for any other: observe,
the law is not content with barely saying another, but it adds any.
Now can there be a doubt as to whether they who declare for a
capital conviction are of any other opinion than those who propose
exile! Go over to the side of him whose opinion you follow: does
not the law seem, as it were, to call, compel, drive over, those who

324 PLINY

are of different opinions, to contrary sides? Does not the consul
himself point out, not only by this solemn form of words, but by
his hand and gesture, the place in which every man is to remain, or
to which he is to go over? "But," it is objected, "if this separation
is made between those who vote for inflicting death, and those who
are on the side of exile, the opinion for acquitting the prisoners must
necessarily prevail." But how does that affect the parties who vote?
Certainly it does not become them to contend by every art, and
urge every expedient, that the milder sentence may not take place.
"Still," say they, "those who are for condemning the accused either
capitally or to banishment should be first set in opposition to those
who are for acquitting them, and afterwards weighed against each
other." Thus, as, in certain public games, some particular combatant
is set apart by lot and kept to engage with the conqueror; so, it
seems, in the senate, there is a first and second combat, and of two
different opinions, the prevailing one has still a third to contend
with. What? when any particular opinion is received, do not all
the rest fall of course? Is it reasonable, then, that one should be
thrown into the scale merely to weigh down another? To express
my meaning more plainly: unless the two parties who are respec-
tively for capital punishment and exile immediately separate upon
the first division of the house, it would be to no purpose afterwards
to dissent from those with whom they joined before. But I am
dictating instead of receiving instruction. Tell me, then, whether
you think these votes should have been taken separately? My
motion, it is true, prevailed; nevertheless I am desirous to know
whether you think I ought to have insisted upon this point, or
have yielded as that member did who declared for capital punish-
ment? For convinced, I will not say of the legality, but at least
of the equity of my proposal, he receded from his opinion, and went
over to the party for exile: fearing perhaps, if the votes were taken
separately (which he saw would be the case), the freedmen would
be acquitted: for the numbers were far greater on that side than
on either of the other two, separately counted. The consequence
was that those who had been influenced by his authority, when they
saw themselves forsaken by his going over to the other party, gave
up a motion which they found abandoned by the first proposer,

LETTERS 325

and deserted, as it were, with their leader. Thus the three opinions
were resolved at length into two; and of those two, one prevailed,
and the other was rejected; while the third, as it was not powerful
enough to conquer both the others, had only to choose to which of
the two it would yield. Farewell.

XC

To PATERNUS

THE sickness lately in my family, which has carried off several
of my servants, some of them, too, in the prime of their years, has
been a great affliction to me. I have two consolations, however,
which, though by no means equivalent to such a grief, still are
consolations. One is, that as I have always readily manumitted my
slaves, their death does not seem altogether immature, if they lived
long enough to receive their freedom : the other, that I have allowed
them to make a kind of will, 1 which I observe as religiously as if
they were legally entitled to that privilege. I receive and obey their
last requests and injunctions as so many authoritative commands,
suffering them to dispose of their effects to whom they please; with
this single restriction, that they leave them to someone in my house-
hold, for to slaves the house they are in is a kind of state and
commonwealth, so to speak. But though I endeavour to acquiesce
under these reflections, yet the same tenderness which led me to
shew them these indulgences weakens and gets the better of me.
However, I would not wish on that account to become harder:
though the generality of the world, I know, look upon losses of
this kind in no other view than as a diminution of their property,
and fancy, by cherishing such an unfeeling temper, they shew a
superior fortitude and philosophy. Their fortitude and philosophy
I will not dispute. But humane, I am sure, they are not; for it is
the very criterion of true manhood to feel those impressions of
sorrow which it endeavours to resist, and to admit not to be above
the want of consolation. But perhaps I have detained you too long
upon this subject, though not so long as I would. There is a certain

1 A slave could acquire no property, and consequently was incapable by law of
making a will. M.

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pleasure even in giving vent to one's grief; especially when we weep
on the bosom of a friend who will approve, or, at least, pardon, our
tears. Farewell.

XCI
To MACRINUS

Is the weather with you as rude and boisterous as it is with us?
All here is tempest and inundation. The Tiber has swelled its
channel, and overflowed its banks far and wide. Though the wise
precaution of the emperor had guarded against this evil, by cutting
several outlets to the river, it has nevertheless flooded all the fields
and valleys and entirely overspread the whole face of the flat country.
It seems to have gone out to meet those rivers which it used to
receive and carry off in one united stream, and has driven them
back to deluge those countries it could not reach itself. That most
delightful of rivers, the Anio, which seems invited and detained
in its course by the villas built along its banks, has almost entirely
rooted up and carried away the woods which shaded its borders.
It has overthrown whole mountains, and, in endeavouring to find
a passage through the mass of ruins that obstructed its way, has
forced down houses, and risen and spread over the desolation it
has occasioned. The inhabitants of the hill countries, who are
situated above the reach of this inundation, have been the melan-
choly spectators of its dreadful effects, having seen costly furniture,
instruments of husbandry, ploughs, and oxen with their drivers,
whole herds of cattle, together with the trunks of trees, and beams
of the neighbouring villas, floating about in different parts. Nor
indeed have these higher places themselves, to which the waters
could not reach up, escaped the calamity. A continued heavy rain
and tempestuous hurricane, as destructive as the river itself, poured
down upon them, and has destroyed all the enclosures which divided
that fertile country. It has damaged likewise, and even overturned,
some of the public buildings, by the fall of which great numbers
have been maimed, smothered, bruised. And thus lamentation over
the fate of friends has been added to losses. I am extremely uneasy
lest this extensive ruin should have spread to you: I beg therefore,

LETTERS 327

if it has not, you will immediately relieve my anxiety; and indeed
I desire you would inform me though it should have done so; for
the difference is not great between fearing a danger, and feeling it;
except that the evil one feels has some bounds, whereas one's appre-
hensions have none. For we can suffer no more than what actually
has happened, but we fear all that possibly could happen. Farewell.

XCII
To RUFINUS

THE common notion is certainly quite a false one, that a man's
will is a kind of mirror in which we may clearly discern his real
character, for Domitius Tullus appears a much better man since
his death than he did during his lifetime. After having artfully
encouraged the expectations of those who paid court to him, with
a view to being his heirs, he has left his estate to his niece whom
he adopted. He has given likewise several very considerable legacies
among his grandchildren, and also to his great-grandson. In a word,
he has shewn himself a most kind relation throughout his whole
will; which is so much the more to be admired as it was not
expected of him. This affair has been very much talked about, and
various opinions expressed: some call him false, ungrateful, and
forgetful, and, while thus railing at him in this way as if they
were actually disinherited kindred, betray their own dishonest de-
signs: others, on the contrary, applaud him extremely for having
disappointed the hopes of this infamous tribe of men, whom, con-
sidering the disposition of the times, it is but prudence to deceive.
They add that he was not at liberty to make any other will, and
that he cannot so properly be said to have bequeathed, as returned,
his estate to his adopted daughter, since it was by her means it
came to him. For Curtilius Mancia, whose daughter Domitius
Lucanus, brother to this Tullus, married, having taken a dislike to
his son-in-law, made this young lady (who was the issue of that
marriage) his heiress, upon condition that Lucanus, her father,
would emancipate her. He accordingly did so, but she being after-
wards adopted by Tullus, her uncle, the design of Mancia's will
was entirely frustrated. For these two brothers having never divided

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their patrimony, but living together as joint tenants of one common
estate, the daughter of Lucanus, notwithstanding the act of emanci-
pation, returned back again, together with her large fortune, under
the dominion of her father, by means of this fraudulent adoption.
It seems indeed to have been the fate of these two brothers to be
enriched by those who had the greatest aversion to them. For
Domitius Afer, by whom they were adopted, left a will in their
favour, which he had made eighteen years before his death; though
it was plain he had since altered his opinion with regard to the
family, because he was instrumental in procuring the confiscation
of their father's estate. There is something extremely singular in
the resentment of Afer, and the good fortune of the other two; as
it was very extraordinary, on the one hand, that Domitius should
endeavour to extirpate from the privileges of society a man whose
children he had adopted, and, on the other, that these brothers
should find a parent in the very person that ruined their father.
But Tullus acted justly, after having been appointed sole heir by
his brother, in prejudice to his own daughter, to make her amends
by transferring to her this estate, which came to him from Afer,
as well as all the rest which he had gained in partnership with his
brother. His will therefore deserves the higher praise, having been
dictated by nature, justice, and sense of honour; in which he has
returned his obligations to his several relations, according to their
respective good offices towards him, not forgetting his wife, having
bequeathed to that excellent woman, who patiently endured much
for his sake, several delightful villas, besides a large sum of money.
And indeed she deserved so much the more at his hands, in pro-
portion to the displeasure she incurred on her marriage with him.
It was thought unworthy a person of her birth and repute, so long
left a widow by her former husband, by whom she had issue, to
marry, in the decline of her life, an old man, merely for his wealth,
and who was so sickly and infirm that, even had he passed the
best years of his youth and health with her, she might well have
been heartily tired of him. He had so entirely lost the use of all
his limbs that he could not move himself in bed without assistance;
and the only enjoyment he had of his riches was to contemplate them.
He was even (sad and disgusting to relate) reduced to the necessity

LETTERS 329

of having his teeth washed and scrubbed by others: in allusion to
which he used frequently to say, when he was complaining of the
indignities which his infirmities obliged him to suffer, that he was
every day compelled to lick his servant's fingers. Still, however, he
lived on, and was willing to accept of life upon such terms. That
he lived so long as he did was particularly owing, indeed, to the
care of his wife, who, whatever reputation she might lose at first
by her marriage, acquired great honour by her unwearied devotion
as his wife. Thus I have given you all the news of the town,
where nothing is talked of but Tullus. It is expected his curiosities
will shortly be sold by auction. He had such an abundant collection
of very old statues that he actually filled an extensive garden with
them, the very same day he purchased it; not to mention numberless
other antiques, lying neglected in his lumber-room. If you have
anything worth telling me in return, I hope you will not refuse the
trouble of writing to me: not only as we are all of us naturally fond,
you know, of news, but because example has a very beneficial in*
fluence upon our own conduct. Farewell.

XCIII
To GALLUS

THOSE works of art or nature which are usually the motives of
our travels are often overlooked and neglected if they lie within
our reach: whether it be that we are naturally less inquisitive con-
cerning those things which are near us, while our curiosity is excited
by remote objects; or because the easiness of gratifying a desire is
always sure to damp it; or, perhaps, that we put off from time to
time going and seeing what we know we have an opportunity of
seeing when we please. Whatever the reason be, it is certain there
are numberless curiosities in and near Rome which we have not
only never seen, but even never so much as heard of: and yet had
they been the produce of Greece, or Egypt, or Asia, or any other
country which we admire as fertile and productive of belief in
wonders, we should long since have heard of them, read of them,
and enquired into them. For myself at least, I confess, I have lately
been entertained with one of these curiosities, to which I was an

33O PLINY

entire stranger before. My wife's grandfather desired I would look
over his estate near Ameria. 1 As I was walking over his grounds,
I was shewn a lake that lies below them, called Vadimon, 2 about
which several very extraordinary things are told. I went up to thif
lake. It is perfectly circular in form, like a wheel lying on the ground;
there is not the least curve or projection of the shore, but all is
regular, even and just as if it had been hollowed and cut out by
the hand of art. The water is of a clear sky-blue, though with
somewhat of a greenish tinge; its smell is sulphurous, and its flavour
has medicinal properties, and is deemed of great efficacy in all
fractures of the limbs, which it is supposed to heal. Though of
but moderate extent, yet the winds have a great effect upon it,
throwing it into violent agitation. No vessels are suffered to sail
here, as its waters are held sacred; but several floating islands swim
about it, covered with reeds and rushes, and with whatever other
plants the surrounding marshy ground and the edge itself of the
lake produce in greater abundance. Each island has its peculiar
shape and size, but the edges of all of them are worn away by
their frequent collision with the shore and one another. They are
all of the same height and motion; as their respective roots, which
are formed like the keel of a boat, may be seen hanging not very
far down in the water, and at an equal depth, on whichever side
you stand. Sometimes they move in a cluster, and seem to form one
entire little continent; sometimes they are dispersed into different
quarters by the wind; at other times, when it is calm, they float
up and down separately. You may frequently see one of the larger
islands sailing along with a lesser joined to it, like a ship with its
long boat; or, perhaps, seeming to strive which shall outswim the
other: then again they are all driven to the same spot, and by
joining themselves to the shore, sometimes on one side and some-
times on the other, lessen or restore the size of the lake in this
part or that, accordingly, till at last, uniting in the centre, they
restore it to its usual size. The sheep which graze upon the borders
of this lake frequently go upon these islands to feed, without per-
ceiving that they have lefc the shore, until they are alarmed by

1 Now called Amelia, a town in Ombria. M.
2 Now Laghetto di Bassano. M.

LETTERS 331

finding themselves surrounded with water; as though they had been
forcibly conveyed and placed there. Afterwards, when the wind
drives them back again, they as little perceive their return as their
departure. This lake empties itself into a river, which, after running
a little way, sinks underground, and, if anything is thrown in, it
brings it up again where the stream emerges. I have given you this
account because I imagined it would not be less new, nor less
agreeable, to you than it was to me; as I know you take the same
pleasure as myself in contemplating the works of nature. Farewell

XCIV
To ARRIANUS

NOTHING, in my opinion, gives a more amiable and becoming
grace to our studies, as well as manners, than to temper the serious
with the gay, lest the former should degenerate into melancholy,
and the latter run up into levity. Upon this plan it is that I diversify
my graver works with compositions of a lighter nature. I had
chosen a convenient place and season for some productions of that
sort to make their appearance in; and designing to accustom them
early to the tables of the idle, I fixed upon the month of July,
which is usually a time of vacation to the courts of justice, in order
to read them to some of my friends I had collected together; and
accordingly I placed a desk before each couch. But as I happened
that morning to be unexpectedly called away to attend a cause, I
took occasion to preface my recital with an apology. I entreated my
audience not to impute it to me as any want of due regard for the
business to which I had invited them that on the very day I had
appointed for reading my performances to a small circle of my
friends I did not refuse my services to others in their law affairs.
I assured them I would observe the same rule in my writings, and
should always give the preference to business before pleasure; to
serious engagements before amusing ones; and to my friends before
myself. The poems I recited consisted of a variety of subjects in
different metres. It is thus that we who dare not rely for much
upon our abilities endeavour to avoid satiating our readers. In
compliance with the earnest solicitation of my audience, I recited

33 2 PLINY

for two days successively; but not in the manner that several prac-
tise, by passing over the feebler passages, and making a merit of
so doing: on the contrary, I omitted nothing, and freely confessed
it. I read the whole, that I might correct the whole; which it is
impossible those who only select particular passages can do. The
latter method, indeed, may have more the appearance of modesty,
and perhaps respect; but the former shows greater simplicity, as
well as a more affectionate disposition towards the audience. For
the belief that a man's friends have so much regard for him as not
to be weary on these occasions, is a sure indication of the love
he bears them. Otherwise, what good do friends do you who
assemble merely for their own amusement? He who had rather
find his friend's performance correct, than make it so, is to be
regarded as a stranger, or one who is too lackadaisical to give him-
self any trouble. Your affection for me leaves me no room to doubt
that you are impatient to read my book, even in its present very
imperfect condition. And so you shall, but not until I have made
those corrections which were the principal inducement of my recital.
You are already acquainted with some parts of it; but even those,
after they have been improved (or perhaps spoiled, as is sometimes
the case by the delay of excessive revision), will seem quite new to
you. For when a piece has undergone various changes, it gets to
look new, even in those very parts which remain unaltered. Farewell.

XCV
To MAXIMUS

MY affection for you obliges me, not indeed to direct you (for
you are far above the want of a guide), but to admonish you care-
fully to observe and resolutely to put in practice what you already
know, that is, in other words, to know it to better purpose. Con-
sider that you are sent to that noble province, Achaia, the real and
genuine Greece, where politeness, learning, and even agriculture
itself, are supposed to have taken their first rise; sent to regulate
the condition of free cities; sent, that is, to a society of men who
breathe the spirit of true manhood and liberty; who have maintained
the rights they received from Nature, by courage, by virtue, by

LETTERS 333

alliances; in a word, by civil and religious faith. Revere the gods,
their founders; their ancient glory, and even that very antiquity itself
which, venerable in men, is sacred in states. Honour them there-
fore for their deeds of old renown, nay, their very legendary
traditions. Grant to everyone his full dignity, privileges, yes, and
the indulgence of his very vanity. Remember it was from this
nation we derived our laws; that she did not receive ours by con-
quest, but gave us hers by favour. Remember it is Athens to which
you go; it is Lacedaemon you govern; and to deprive such a people
of the declining shadow, the remaining name of liberty, would be
cruel, inhuman, barbarous. Physicians, you see, though in sickness
there is no difference between freedom and slavery, yet treat per-
sons of the former rank with more tenderness than those of the
latter. Reflect what these cities once were; but so reflect as not to
despise them for what they are now. Far be pride and asperity
from my friend; nor fear, by a proper condescension, to lay yourself
open to contempt. Can he who is vested with the power and bears
the ensigns of authority, can he fail of meeting with respect, unless
by pursuing base and sordid measures, and first breaking through
that reverence he owes to himself? Ill, believe me, is power proved by
insult; ill can terror command veneration, and far more effectual is
affection in obtaining one's purpose than fear. For terror operates no
longer than its object is present, but love produces its effects with its
object at a distance: and as absence changes the former into hatred, it
raises the latter into respect. And therefore you ought (and I
cannot but repeat it too often), you ought to well consider the
nature of your office, and to represent to yourself how great and
important the task is of governing a free state. For what can be
better for society than such government, what can be more precious
than freedom? How ignominious then must his conduct be who
turns good government into anarchy, and liberty into slavery? To
these considerations let me add that you have an established reputa-
tion to maintain: the fame you acquired by the administration of
the quaestorship in Bithynia, 1 the good opinion of the emperor, the
credit you obtained when you were tribune and prastor, in a word,
this very government, which may be looked upon as the reward
1 A province in Anatolia, or Asia Minor. M.

334 PLINY

of your former services, are all so many glorious weights which
are incumbent upon you to support with suitable dignity. The
more strenuously therefore you ought to endeavour that it may
not be said you shewed greater urbanity, integrity, and ability in a
province remote from Rome, than in one which lies so much nearer
the capital; in the midst of a nation of slaves, than among a free
people; that it may not be remarked that it was chance, and not
judgment, appointed you to this office; that your character was
unknown and unexperienced, not tried and approved. For (and it
is a maxim which your reading and conversation must have often
suggested to you) it is a far greater disgrace losing the name one
has once acquired than never to have attained it. I again beg you
to be persuaded that I did not Write this letter with a design of
instruction, but of reminder. Though, indeed, if I had, it would
have only been in consequence of the great affection I bear you:
a sentiment which I am in no fear of carrying beyond its just
bounds : for there can be no danger of excess where one cannot love
too well. Farewell.

XCVI
To PAULINUS

OTHERS may think as they please; but the happiest man, in my
opinion, is he who lives in the conscious anticipation of an honest
and enduring name, and secure of future glory in the eyes of
posterity. I confess, if I had not the reward of an immortal reputa-
tion in view, I should prefer a life of uninterrupted ease and in-
dolent retirement to any other. There seem to be two points worthy
every man's attention: endless fame, or the short duration of life.
Those who are actuated by the former motive ought to exert them-
selves to the very utmost of their power; while such as are influenced
by the latter should quietly resign themselves to repose, and not
wear out a short life in perishable pursuits, as we see so many
doing and then sink at last into utter self-contempt, in the midst
of a wretched and fruitless course of false industry. These are my
daily reflections, which I communicate to you, in order to renounce
them if you do not agree with them; as undoubtedly you will,

LETTERS 335

who are for ever meditating some glorious and immortal enterprise.
Farewell.

XCVII

To CALVISIUS

I HAVE spent these several days past, in reading and writing, with
the most pleasing tranquillity imaginable. You will ask, "How that
can possibly be in the midst of Rome?" It was the time of celebrating
the Circensian games: an entertainment for which I have not the
least taste. They have no novelty, no variety to recommend them,
nothing, in short, one would wish to see twice. It does the more
surprise me therefore that so many thousand people should be
possessed with the childish passion of desiring so often to see a
parcel of horses gallop, and men standing upright in their chariots.
If, indeed, it were the swiftness of the horses, or the skill of the
men that attracted them, there might be some pretence of reason
for it. But it is the dress 1 they like; it is the dress that takes their
fancy. And if, in the midst of the course and contest, the different
parties were to change colours, their different partisans would
change sides, and instantly desert the very same men and horses
whom just before they were eagerly following with their eyes, as
far as they could see, and shouting out their names with all their
might. Such mighty charms, such wondrous power reside in the
colour of a paltry tunic! And this not only with the common crowd
(more contemptible than the dress they espouse), but even with
serious-thinking people. When I observe such men thus insatiably
fond of so silly, so low, so uninteresting, so common an entertain-
ment, I congratulate myself on my indifference to these pleasures:
and am glad to employ the leisure of this season upon my books,
which others throw away upon the most idle occupations. Farewell.

1 The performers at these games were divided into companies, distinguished by the
particular colour of their habits; the principal of which were the white, the red, the
blue, and the green. Accordingly the spectators favoured one or the other colour,
as humour and caprice inclined them. In the reign of Justinian a tumult arose in
Constantinople, occasioned merely by a contention among the partisans of these
several colours, wherein no less than 30,000 men lost their lives. M.

336

PLINY
XCVIII

To ROMANUS

I AM pleased to find by your letter that you are engaged in build-
ing; for I may now defend my own conduct by your example.
I am myself employed in the same sort of work; and since I have
you, who shall deny I have reason on my side? Our situations too
are not dissimilar; your buildings are carried on upon the sea-coast,
mine are rising upon the side of the Larian lake. I have several
villas upon the borders of this lake, but there are two particularly
in which as I take most delight, so they give me most employment.
They are both situated like those at Baize 1 : one of them stands upon
a rock, and overlooks the lake; the other actually touches it. The
first, supported, as it were, by the lofty buskin, 2 I call my tragic;
the other, as resting upon the humble rock, my comic villa. Each
has its own peculiar charm, recommending it to its possessor so
much more on account of this very difference. The former com-
mands a wider, the latter enjoys a nearer view of the lake. One,
by a gentle curve, embraces a little bay; the other, being built upon
a greater height, forms two. Here you have a strait walk extending
itself along the banks of the lake; there, a spacious terrace that
falls by a gentle descent towards it. The former does not feel the
force of the waves; the latter breaks them; from that you see the
fishing-vessels; from this you may fish yourself, and throw your
line out of your room, and almost from your bed, as from off a boat.
It is the beauties therefore these agreeable villas possess that tempt
me to add to them those which are wanting. But I need not assign
a reason to you, who, undoubtedly, will think it a sufficient one
that I follow your example. Farewell.

1 Now called Castello di Baia, in Terra di Lavoro. It was the place the Romans
chose for their winter retreat; and which they frequented upon account of its warm
baths. Some few ruins of the beautiful villas that once covered this delightful coast still
remain; and nothing can give one a higher idea of the prodigious expense and mag-
nificence of the Romans in their private buildings than the manner in which some
of these were situated. It appears from this letter, as well as from several other
passages in the classic writers, that they actually projected into the sea, being erected
upon vast piles sunk for that purpose. M.

2 The buskin was a kind of high shoe worn upon the stage by the actors of tragedy,
in order to give them a more heroical elevation of stature; as the sock was something
between a shoe and stocking, it was appropriated to the comic players. M.

LETTERS 337

XCIX
To GEMINUS

YOUR letter was particularly acceptable to me, as it mentioned
your desire that I would send you something of mine, addressed
to you, to insert in your works. I shall find a more appropriate
occasion of complying with your request than that which you
propose, the subject you point out to me being attended with some
objections; and when you reconsider it, you will think so. As I
did not imagine there were any booksellers at Lugdunum, 1 I am
so much the more pleased to learn that my works are sold there.
I rejoice to find they maintain the character abroad which they
raised at home, and I begin to flatter myself they have some merit,
since persons of such distant countries are agreed in their opinion
with regard to them. Farewell.

To JUNIOR

A CERTAIN friend of mine lately chastised his son, in my presence,
for being somewhat too expensive in the matter of dogs and horses.
"And pray," I asked him, when the youth had left us, "did you
never commit a fault yourself which deserved your father's cor-
rection? Did you never? I repeat. Nay, are you not sometimes
even now guilty of errors which your son, were he in your place,
might with equal gravity reprove? Are not all mankind subject to
indiscretions? And have we not each of us our particular follies
in which we fondly indulge ourselves?"

The great affection I have for you induced me to set this instance
of unreasonable severity before you a caution not to treat your son
with too much harshness and severity. Consider, he is but a boy,
and that there was a time when you were so too. In exerting,
therefore, the authority of a father, remember always that you are
a man, and the parent of a man. Farewell.

1 Lyons.

338 PLINY

CI

To QUADRATUS

THE pleasure and attention with which you read the vindication
I published of Helvidius, 1 has greatly raised your curiosity, it seems,
to be informed of those particulars relating to that affair, which
are not mentioned in the defence; as you were too young to be
present yourself at that transaction. When Domitian was assas-
sinated, a glorious opportunity, I thought, offered itself to me of
pursuing the guilty, vindicating the injured, and advancing my own
reputation. But amidst an infinite variety of the blackest crimes,
none appeared to me more atrocious than that a senator, of praetorian
dignity, and invested with the sacred character of a judge, should,
even in the very senate itself, lay violent hands upon a member 2
of that body, one of consular rank, and who then stood arraigned
before him. Besides this general consideration, I also happened to
be on terms of particular intimacy with Helvidius, as far as this
was possible with one who, through fear of the times, endeavoured
to veil the lustre of his fame, and his virtues, in obscurity and
retirement. Arria likewise, and her daughter Fannia, who was
mother-in-law to Helvidius, were in the number of my friends.
But it was not so much private attachments as the honour of the
public, a just indignation at the action, and the danger of the
example if it should pass unpunished, that animated me upon the
occasion. At the first restoration of liberty, 3 every man singled out
his own particular enemy (though it must be confessed, those only
of a lower rank), and, in the midst of much clamour and confusion,
no sooner brought the charge than procured the condemnation. But
for myself, I thought it would be more reasonable and more
effectual, not to take advantage of the general resentment of the
public, but to crush this criminal with the single weight of his
own enormous guilt. When therefore the first heat of public in-
dignation began to cool, and declining passion gave way to justice,

1 He was accused of treason, under pretence that in a dramatic piece which he
composed he had, in the characters of Paris and CEnone, reflected upon Domitian for
divorcing his wife Domitia. Suet, in Vit. Domit. c. 10. M. 2 Helvidius.

3 Upon the accession of Nerva to the empire, after the death of Domitian. M.

LETTERS 339

though I was at that time under great affliction for the loss of my
wife, 4 I sent to Anteia, the widow of Helvidius, and desired her
to come to me, as my late misfortune prevented me from appearing
in public. When she arrived, I said to her, "I am resolved not to
suffer the injuries your husband has received, to pass unrevenged;
let Arria and Fannia" (who were just returned from exile) "know
this; and consider together whether you would care to join with me
in the prosecution. Not that I want an associate, but I am not so
jealous of my own glory as to refuse to share it with you in this
affair." She accordingly carried this message; and they all agreed
to the proposal without the least hesitation. It happened very
opportunely that the senate was to meet within three days. It was
a general rule with me to consult, in all my affairs, with Corellius,
a person of the greatest far-sightedness and wisdom this age has
produced. However, in the present case, I relied entirely upon my
own discretion, being apprehensive he would not approve of my
design, as he was very cautious and deliberate. But though I did
not previously take counsel with him (experience having taught
me never to do so with a person concerning a question we have
already determined, where he has a right to expect that one shall
be decided by his judgment), yet I could not forbear acquainting
him with my resolution at the time I intended to carry it into
execution. The senate being assembled, I came into the house, and
begged I might have leave to make a motion; which I did in few
words, and with general assent. When I began to touch upon the
charge, and point out the person I intended to accuse (though as
yet without mentioning him by name), I was attacked on all sides.
"Let us know," exclaims one, "who is the subject of this informal
motion?" "Who is it," asked another, "that is thus accused, with-
out acquainting the house with his name, and his crime?" "Surely,"
added a third, "we who have survived the late dangerous times
may expect now, at least, to remain in security." I heard all this
with perfect calmness, and without being in the least alarmed. Such
is the effect of conscious integrity; and so much difference is there
with respect to inspiring confidence or fear, whether the world

4 Our author's first wife, of whom we have no particular account. After her death,
he married his favourite, Calpurnia. A/.

34 PLINY

had only rather one should forbear a certain act, or absolutely con-
demns it. It would be too tedious to relate all that was advanced,
by different parties, upon this occasion. At length the consul said,
"You will be at liberty, Secundus, to propose what you think proper
when your turn comes to give your opinion upon the order of the
day." 5 I replied, "You must allow me a liberty which you never
yet refused to any"; and so sat down: when immediately the house
went upon another business. In the meanwhile, one of my consular
friends took me aside, and, with great earnestness telling me he
thought I had carried on this affair with more boldness than pru-
dence, used every method of reproof and persuasion to prevail with
me to desist; adding at the same time that I should certainly, if
I persevered, render myself obnoxious to some future prince. "Be
it so," I returned, "should he prove a bad one." Scarcely had he
left me when a second came up: "Whatever," said he, "are you
attempting? Why ever will you ruin yourself? Do you consider
the risks you expose yourself to ? Why will you presume too much
on the present situation of public affairs, when it is so uncertain
what turn they may hereafter take? You are attacking a man who
is actually at the head of the treasury, and will shortly be consul.
Besides, recollect what credit he has, and with what powerful friend-
ships he is supported." Upon which he named a certain person, who
(not without several strong and suspicious rumours) was then at
the head of a powerful army in the east. I replied,

" 'All I've foreseen, and oft in thought revolv'd'; 6

and am willing, if fate shall so decree, to surfer in an honest cause,
provided I can draw vengeance down upon a most infamous one."
The time for the members to give their opinions was now arrived.
Domitius Apollinaris, the consul elect, spoke first; after him
Fabricius Vejento, then Fabius Maximinus, Vettius Proculus next
(who married my wife's mother, and who was the colleague of
Publicius Certus, the person on whom the debate turned), and
last of all Ammius Flaccus. They all defended Certus as if I had

5 It is very remarkable that, when any senator was asked his opinion in the house,
he had the privilege of speaking as long as he pleased upon any other affair before
he came to the point in question. Aul. Cell. lib. iv., c. 10. M.
6 ^Eneid, lib. vi., v. 105.

LETTERS 341

named him (though I had not yet so much as once mentioned him),
and entered upon his justification as if I had exhibited a specific
charge. It is not necessary to repeat in this place what they respec-
tively said, having given it all at length in their words, in the
speech above-mentioned. Avidius Quietus and Cornutus Tertullus
answered them. The former observed, "that it was extremely unjust
not to hear the complaints of those who thought themselves injured,
and therefore that Arria and Fannia ought not to be denied the
privilege of laying their grievances before the house; and that the
point for the consideration of the senate was not the rank of the
person, but the merit of the cause."

Then Cornutus rose up and acquainted the house, "that, as he
was appointed guardian to the daughter of Helvidius by the con-
suls, upon the petition of her mother and her father-in-law, he felt
himself compelled to fulfil the duty of his trust. In the execution
of which, however, he would endeavour to set some bounds to his
indignation by following that great example of moderation which
those excellent women 7 had set, who contented themselves with
barely informing the senate of the cruelties which Certus com-
mitted in order to carry on his infamous adulation; and therefore,"
he said, "he would move only that, if a punishment due to a crime
so notoriously known should be remitted, Certus might at least
be branded with some mark of the displeasure of that august
assembly." Satrius Rufus spoke next, and, meaning to steer a middle
course, expressed himself with considerable ambiguity. "I am of
opinion," said he, "that great injustice will be done to Certus if
he is not acquitted (for I do not scruple to mention his name, since
the friends of Arria and Fannia, as well as his own, have done so
too), nor indeed have we any occasion for anxiety upon this account.
We who think well of the man shall judge him with the same
impartiality as the rest; but if he is innocent, as I hope he is, and
shall be glad to find, I think this house may very justly deny the
present motion till some charge has been proved against him."
Thus, according to the respective order in which they were called
upon, they delivered their several opinions. When it came to my
turn, I rose up, and, using the same introduction to my speech as

7 Arria and Fannia.

34 2 PLINY

I have published in the defence, I replied to them severally. It is
surprising with what attention, what clamorous applause I was
heard, even by those who just before were loudest against me:
such a wonderful change was wrought either by the importance
of the affair, the successful progress of the speech, or the resolution
of the advocate. After I had finished, Vejento attempted to reply;
but the general clamour raised against him not permitting him
to go on, "I entreat you, conscript fathers," 8 said he, "not to oblige
me to implore the assistance of the tribunes." 9 Immediately the
tribune Murena cried out, "You have my permission, most illustrious
Vejento, to go on." But still the clamour was renewed. In the in-
terval, the consul ordered the house to divide, and having counted
the voices, dismissed the senate, leaving Vejento in the midst,
still attempting to speak. He made great complaints of this affront
(as he called it), applying the following lines of Homer to himself:

"Great perils, father, wait the unequal fight;
Those younger champions will thy strength o'ercome." 10

There was hardly a man in the senate that did not embrace and
kiss me, and all strove who should applaud me most, for having,
at the cost of private enmities, revived a custom so long disused,
of freely consulting the senate upon affairs that concern the honour
of the public; in a word, for having wiped off that reproach which
was thrown upon it by other orders in the state, "that the senators
mutually favoured the members of their own body, while they
were very severe in animadverting upon the rest of their fellow-
citizens." All this was transacted in the absence of Certus; who
kept out of the way either because he suspected something of this
nature was intended to be moved, or (as was alleged in his excuse)
that he was really unwell. Caesar, however, did not refer the ex-
amination of this matter to the senate. But I succeeded, nevertheless,
in my aim, another person being appointed to succeed Certus in
the consulship, while the election of his colleague to that office was

8 The appellation by which the senate was addressed. M.

9 The tribunes were magistrates chosen at first out of the body of the commons,
for the defence of their liberties, and to interpose in all grievances offered by their
superiors. Their authority extended even to the deliberations of the senate. M.

10 Diomed's speech to Nestor, advising him to retire from the field of battle. Iliad,
viii. 102. Pope. M.

LETTERS 343

confirmed. And thus, the wish with which I concluded my speech,
was actually accomplished: "May he be obliged," said I, "to re-
nounce, under a virtuous prince, 11 that reward he received from an
infamous one!" 12 Some time after I recollected, as well as I could,
the speech I had made upon this occasion; to which I made several
additions. It happened (though indeed it had the appearance of
being something more than casual) that a few days after I had
published this piece, Certus was taken ill and died. I was told
that his imagination was continually haunted with this affair, and
kept picturing me ever before his eyes, as a man pursuing him with
a drawn sword. Whether there was any truth in this rumour, I
will not venture to assert; but, for the sake of example, however,
I could wish it might gain credit. And now I have sent you a
letter which (considering it is a letter) is as long as the defence you
say you have read: but you must thank yourself for not being con-
tent with such information as that piece could afford you. Farewell.

CII

To GENITOR

I HAVE received your letter, in which you complain of having
been highly disgusted lately at a very splendid entertainment, by
a set of buffoons, mummers, and wanton prostitutes, who were
dancing about round the tables. 1 But let me advise you to smooth

II Nerva.

12 Domitian; by whom he had been appointed consul elect, though he had not yet
entered upon that office. A/.

1 These persons were introduced at most of the tables of the great, for the purposes
of mirth and gaiety, and constituted an essential part in all polite entertainments
among the Romans. It is surprising how soon this great people fell off from their
original severity of manners, and were tainted with the stale refinements of foreign
luxury. Livy dates the rise of this and other unmanly delicacies from the conquest of
Scipio Asiaticus over Antiochus; that is, when the Roman name had scarce subsisted
above a hundred and threescore years. "Luxuries peregrince origo," says he, "exercittt
Asiatico in urbem invccta est." This triumphant army caught, it seems, the con-
tagious softness of the people it subdued; and, on its return to Rome, spread an
infection among their countrymen, which worked by slow degrees, till it effected their
total destruction. Thus did Eastern luxury revenge itself on Roman arms. It may be
wondered that Pliny should keep his own temper, and check the indignation of his
friends, at a scene which was fit only for the dissolute revels of the infamous Tri-
malchio. But it will not, perhaps, be doing justice to our author to take an estimate
of his real sentiments upon this point from the letter before us. Genitor, it seems, was
a man of strict, but rather of too austere morals for the free turn of the age:
"emendatus et gravis: paulo etiam horridior et durior tit in hoc licentia temporum"

344 PLINY

your knitted brow somewhat. I confess, indeed, I admit nothing of
this kind at my own house; however, I bear with it in others.
"And why, then," you will be ready to ask, "not have them your-
self?" The truth is, because the gestures of the wanton, the
pleasantries of the buffoon, or the extravagancies of the mummer,
give me no pleasure, as they give me no surprise. It is my particular
taste, you see, not my judgment, that I plead against them. And,
indeed, what numbers are there who think the entertainments
with which you and I are most delighted no better than impertinent
follies! How many are there who, as soon as a reader, a lyrist, or a
comedian is introduced, either take their leave of the company or,
if they remain, shew as much dislike to this sort of thing as you
did to those monsters, as you call them! Let us bear therefore, my
friend, with others in their amusements, that they, in return, may
shew indulgence to ours. Farewell.

cm

To SABINIANUS

YOUR freedman, whom you lately mentioned to me with dis-
pleasure, has been with me, and threw himself at my feet with as
much submission as he could have fallen at yours. He earnestly
requested me with many tears, and even with all the eloquence of
silent sorrow, to intercede for him; in short, he convinced me by
his whole behaviour that he sincerely repents of his fault. I am
persuaded he is thoroughly reformed, because he seems deeply
sensible of his guilt. I know you are angry with him, and I know,
too, it is not without reason; but clemency can never exert itself
more laudably than when there is the most cause for resentment.
You once had an affection for this man, and, I hope, will have
again; meanwhile, let me only prevail with you to pardon him.
If he should incur your displeasure hereafter, you will have so
much the stronger plea in excuse for your anger as you shew

(Ep in., 1. 3). But as there is a certain seasonable accommodation to the manners
of the times, not only extremely consistent with, but highly conducive to, the interests
of virtue, Pliny, probably, may affect a greater latitude than he in general approved,
m order to draw off his friend from that stiffness and unyielding disposition which
might prejudice those of a gayer turn against him, and consequently lessen the
beneficial influence of his virtues upon the world. A/.

LETTERS 345

yourself more merciful to him now. Concede something to his
youth, to his tears, and to your own natural mildness of temper:
do not make him uneasy any longer, and I will add, too, do not
make yourself so; for a man of your kindness of heart cannot be
angry without feeling great uneasiness. I am afraid, were I to join
my entreaties with his, I should seem rather to compel than request
you to forgive him. Yet I will not scruple even to write mine with
his; and in so much the stronger terms as I have very sharply and
severely reproved him, positively threatening never to interpose again
in his behalf. But though it was proper to say this to him, in order
to make him more fearful of offending, I do not say so to you.
I may, perhaps, again have occasion to entreat you upon his account,
and again obtain your forgiveness; supposing, I mean, his fault
should be such as may become me to intercede for, and you to
pardon. Farewell.

CIV

To MAXIMUS

IT has frequently happened, as I have been pleading before the
Court of the Hundred, that these venerable judges, after having pre-
served for a long period the gravity and solemnity suitable to their
character, have suddenly, as though urged by irresistible impulse,
risen up to a man and applauded me. I have often likewise gained as
much glory in the senate as my utmost wishes could desire: but I
never felt a more sensible pleasure than by an account which I lately
received from Cornelius Tacitus. He informed me that, at the last
Circensian games, he sat next to a Roman knight, who, after conver-
sation had passed between them upon various points of learning,
asked him, "Are you an Italian, or a provincial?" Tacitus replied,
"Your acquaintance with literature must surely have informed you
who I am." "Pray, then, is it Tacitus or Pliny I am talking with?"
I cannot express how highly I am pleased to find that our names are
not so much the proper appellatives of men as a kind of distinction
for learning herself; and that eloquence renders us known to those
who would otherwise be ignorant of us. An accident of the same
kind happened to me a few days ago. Fabius Rufinus, a person

346 PLINY

of distinguished merit, was placed next to me at table; and below
him a countryman of his, who had just then come to Rome for the
first time. Rufinus, calling his friend's attention to me, said to him,
"You see this man?" and entered into a conversation upon the
subject of my pursuits: to whom the other immediately replied,
"This must undoubtedly be Pliny." To confess the truth, I look
upon these instances as a very considerable recompense of my la-
bours. If Demosthenes had reason to be pleased with the old woman
of Athens crying out, "This is Demosthenes!" may not I, then, be
allowed to congratulate myself upon the celebrity my name has
acquired? Yes, my friend, I will rejoice in it, and without scruple
admit that I do. As I only mention the judgment of others, not my
own, I am not afraid of incurring the censure of vanity; especially
from you, who, whilst envying no man's reputation, are particularly
zealous for mine. Farewell.

CV

To SABINIANUS

I GREATLY approve of your having, in compliance with my letter, 1
received again into your favour and family a discarded freedman,
whom you once admitted into a share of your affection. This will
afford you, I doubt not, great satisfaction. It certainly has me, both
as a proof that your passion can be controlled, and as an instance of
your paying so much regard to me as either to yield to my authority
or to comply with my request. Let me, therefore, at once both
praise and thank you. At the same time I must advise you to be
disposed for the future to pardon the faults of your people, though
there should be none to intercede in their behalf. Farewell.

CVI

To LUPERCUS

I SAID once (and, I think, not inaptly) of a certain orator of the
present age, whose compositions are extremely regular and correct,

1 See letter ciii.

LETTERS 347

but deficient in grandeur and embellishment, "His only fault is
that he has none." Whereas he, who is possessed of the true spirit
of oratory, should be bold and elevated, and sometimes even flame
out, be hurried away, and frequently tread upon the brink of a preci-
pice: for danger is generally near whatever is towering and exalted.
The plain, it is true, affords a safer, but for that reason a more
humble and inglorious, path: they who run are more likely to
stumble than they who creep; but the latter gain no honour by not
slipping, while the former even fall with glory. It is with eloquence
as with some other arts; she is never more pleasing than when she
risks most. Have you not observed what acclamations our rope-
dancers excite at the instant of imminent danger? Whatever is
most entirely unexpected, or, as the Greeks more strongly express it,
whatever is most perilous, most excites our admiration. The pilot's
skill is by no means equally proved in a calm as in a storm: in the
former case he tamely enters the port, unnoticed and unapplauded;
but when the cordage cracks, the mast bends, and the rudder groans,
then it is that he shines out in all his glory, and is hailed as little
inferior to a sea-god.

The reason of my making this observation is, because, if I mis-
take not, you have marked some passages in my writings for being
tumid, exuberant, and overwrought, which, in my estimation, are but
adequate to the thought, or boldly sublime. But it is material to
consider whether your criticism turns upon such points as are real
faults, or only striking and remarkable expressions. Whatever is
elevated is sure to be observed; but it requires a very nice judgment
to distinguish the bounds between true and false grandeur; between
loftiness and exaggeration. To give an instance out of Homer, the
author who can, with the greatest propriety, fly from one extreme
of style to another:

"Heav'n in loud thunder bids the trumpet sound;
And wide beneath them groans the rending ground." 1

Again,

"Reclin'd on clouds his steed and armour lay." 2

'Iliad, xxi. 387. Pope. M.

2 Iliad, v. 356, speaking of Mars. M.

348 PLINY

So in this passage:

"As torrents roll, increas'd by numerous rills,
With rage impetuous down their echoing hills,
Rush to the vales, and pour'd along the plain,
Roar through a thousand channels to the main." 3

It requires, I say, the nicest balance to poise these metaphors, and
determine whether they are incredible and meaningless, or majestic
and sublime. Not that I think anything which I have written, or can
write, admits of comparison with these. I am not quite so foolish;
but what I would be understood to contend for is, that we should
give eloquence free rein, and not restrain the force and impetuosity
of genius within too narrow a compass. But it will be said, perhaps,
that one law applies to orators, another to poets. As if, in truth,
Marc-Tully were not as bold in his metaphors as any of the poets!
But not to mention particular instances from him, in a point where,
I imagine, there can be no dispute; does Demosthenes 4 himself, that
model and standard of true oratory, does Demosthenes check and
repress the fire of his indignation, in that well-known passage which
begins thus? "These wicked men, these flatterers, and these de-
stroyers of mankind," &c. And again: "It is neither with stones nor
bricks that I have fortified this city," &c. And afterwards: "I have
thrown up these outworks before Attica, and pointed out to you all
the resources which human prudence can suggest," &c. And in
another place: "O Athenians, I swear by the immortal gods that he
is intoxicated with the grandeur of his own actions," &c. 5 But what
can be more daring and beautiful than that long digression which
begins in this manner: "A terrible disease"? The following passage
likewise, though somewhat shorter, is equally boldly conceived:
"Then it was I rose up in opposition to the daring Pytho, who poured

3 Iliad, iv. 452. Pope.

4 The design of Pliny in this letter is to justify the figurative expressions he had
employed, probably in some oration, by instances of the same warmth of colouring
from those great masters of eloquence, Demosthenes and his rival, ^Eschines. But the
force of the passages which he produces from these orators must necessarily be greatly
weakened to a mere modern reader, some of them being only hinted at, as generally
well known; and the metaphors in several of the others have either lost much of
their original spirit and boldness, by being introduced and received in common
language, or cannot, perhaps, be preserved in an English translation. Af.

5 See ist Philippic.

LETTERS 349

forth a torrent of menaces against you," &c. 6 The subsequent stric-
ture is of the same stamp : "When a man has strengthened himself,
as Philip has, in avarice and wickedness, the first pretence, the first
false step, be it ever so inconsiderable, has overthrown and destroyed
all," &c. 7 So in the same style with the foregoing is this: "Railed off,
as it were, from the privileges of society, by the concurrent and just
judgments of the three tribunals in the city." And in the same
place: "O Aristogiton! you have betrayed that mercy which used
to be shewn to offences of this nature, or rather, indeed, you have
wholly destroyed it. In vain then would you fly for refuge to a
port, which you have shut up, and encompassed with rocks." He
has said before: "I am afraid, therefore, you should appear, in the
judgment of some, to have erected a public seminary of faction: for
there is a weakness in all wickedness which renders it apt to betray
itself!" And a little lower: "I see none of these resources open
to him; but all is precipice, gulf, and profound abyss." And again:
"Nor do I imagine that our ancestors erected those courts of judica-
ture that men of his character should be planted there, but, on the
contrary, eradicated, that none may emulate their evil actions."
And afterwards: "If he is then the artificer of every wickedness, if
he only makes it his trade and traffic," &c. And a thousand other
passages which I might cite to the same purpose; not to mention
those expressions which ^Eschines calls not words, but wonders.
You will tell me, perhaps, I have unwarily mentioned ^Eschines,
since Demosthenes is condemned even by him, for running into
these figurative expressions. But observe, I entreat you, how far
superior the former orator is to his critic, and superior too in the
very passage to which he objects; for in others, the force of his
genius, in those above quoted, its loftiness, makes itself manifest.
But does vEschines himself avoid those errors which he reproves
in Demosthenes? "The orator," says he, "Athenians, and the law,
ought to speaJ^ the same language; but when the voice of the law
declares one thing, and that of the orator another, we should give
our vote to the justice of the law, not to the impudence of the
orator." 8 And in another place: "He afterwards manifestly dis-

6 See Demosthenes' speech in defence of Ctesiphon. 7 See 2nd Olymhiac.
8 See ^ischines' speech against Ctesiphon.

35 PLINY

covered the design he had, of concealing his fraud under cover of
the decree, having expressly declared therein that the ambassadors
sent to the Oretar gave the five talents, not to you, but to Callias.
And that you may be convinced of the truth of what I say (after
having stripped the decree of its galleys, its trim, and its arrogant
ostentation), read the clause itself." And in another part: "Suffer
him not to breat^ cover and escape out of the limits of the question."
A metaphor he is so fond of that he repeats it again. "But remaining
firm and confident in the assembly, drive him into the merits of the
question, and observe well how he doubles'' Is his style more re-
served and simple when he says: "But you are ever wounding our
ears, and are more concerned in the success of your daily harangues
than for the salvation of the city"? What follows is conceived in a
yet higher strain of metaphor: "Will you not expel this man as the
common calamity of Greece? Will you not seize and punish this
pirate of the state, who sails about in quest of favourable conjunc-
tures," &c. With many other passages of a similar nature. And
now I expect you will make the same attacks upon certain expres-
sions in this letter as you did upon those I have been endeavouring to
defend. The rudder that groans, and the pilot compared to a sea-god,
will not, I imagine, escape your criticism: for I perceive, while I
am suing for indulgence to my former style, I have fallen into the
same kind of figurative diction which you condemn. But attack
them if you please, provided you will immediately appoint a day
when we may meet to discuss these matters in person: you will then
either teach me to be less daring or I shall teach you to be more bold.
Farewell.

CVII
To CANINIUS

I HAVE met with a story, which, although authenticated by un-
doubted evidence, looks very like fable, and would afford a worthy
field for the exercise of so exuberant, lofty, and truly poetical a
genius as your own. It was related to me the other day over the
dinner table, where the conversation happened to run upon various
kinds of marvels. The person who told the story was a man of

LETTERS 351

unsuspected veracity: but what has a poet to do with truth? How-
ever, you might venture to rely upon his testimony, even though
you had the character of a faithful historian to support. There is in
Africa a town called Hippo, situated not far from the sea-coast: it
stands upon a navigable lake, communicating with an estuary in the
form of a river, which alternately flows into the lake, or into the
ocean, according to the ebb and flow of the tide. People of all ages
amuse themselves here with fishing, sailing, or swimming; especially
boys, whom love of play brings to the spot. With these it is a fine
and manly achievement to be able to swim the farthest; and he that
leaves the shore and his companions at the greatest distance gains
the victory. It happened, in one of these trials of skill, that a certain
boy, bolder than the rest, launched out towards the opposite shore.
He was met by a dolphin, who sometimes swam before him, and
sometimes behind him, then played round him, and at last took
him upon his back, and set him down, and afterwards took him up
again; and thus he carried the poor frightened fellow out into the
deepest part; when immediately he turns back again to the shore,
and lands him among his companions. The fame of this remarkable
accident spread through the town, and crowds of people flocked
round the boy (whom they viewed as a kind of prodigy) to ask
him questions and hear him relate the story. The next day the
shore was thronged with spectators, all attentively watching the
ocean, and (what indeed is almost itself an ocean) the lake. Mean-
while the boys swam as usual, and among the rest, the boy I am
speaking of went into the lake, but with more caution than before.
The dolphin appeared again and came to the boy, who, together
with his companions, swam away with the utmost precipitation.
The dolphin, as though to invite and call them back, leaped and
dived up and down, in a series of circular movements. This he
practised the next day, the day after, and for several days together,
till the people (accustomed from their infancy to the sea) began to
be ashamed of their timidity. They ventured, therefore, to advance
nearer, playing with him and calling him to them, while he, in
return, suffered himself to be touched and stroked. Use rendered
them courageous. The boy, in particular, who first made the experi-
ment, swam by the side of him, and leaping upon his back, was

35 2 PLINY

carried backwards and forwards in that manner, and thought the
dolphin knew him and was fond of him, while he too had grown
fond of the dolphin. There seemed now, indeed, to be no fear on
either side, the confidence of the one and tameness of the other
mutually increasing; the rest of the boys, in the meanwhile, sur-
rounding and encouraging their companion. It is very remarkable
that this dolphin was followed by a second, which seemed only as a
spectator and attendant on the former; for he did not at all submit
to the same familiarities as the first, but only escorted him back-
wards and forwards, as the boys did their comrade. But what is
further surprising, and no less true than what I have already related,
is that this dolphin, who thus played with the boys and carried them
upon his back, would come upon the shore, dry himself in the sand,
and, as soon as he grew warm, roll back into the sea. It is a fact
that Octavius Avitus, deputy governor of the province, actuated by
an absurd piece of superstition, poured some ointment 1 over him as
he lay on the shore: the novelty and smell of which made him
retire into the ocean, and it was not till several days after that he
was seen again, when he appeared dull and languid; however, he
recovered his strength and continued his usual playful tricks. All
the magistrates round flocked hither to view this sight, whose arrival
and prolonged stay, was an additional expense, which the slender
finances of this little community would ill afford; besides, the quiet
and retirement of the place was utterly destroyed. It was thought
proper, therefore, to remove the occasion of this concourse, by pri-
vately killing the poor dolphin. And now, with what a flow of
tenderness will you describe this affecting catastrophe! 2 and how
will your genius adorn and heighten this moving story! Though,
indeed, the subject does not require any fictitious embellishments;

1 It was a religious ceremony practised by the ancients to pour precious ointments
upon the statues of their gods: Avitus, it is probable, imagined this dolphin was some
sea-divinity, and therefore expressed his veneration of him by the solemnity of a
sacred unction. M.

2 The overflowing humanity of Pliny's temper breaks out upon all occasions, but
he discovers it in nothing more strongly than by the impression which this little
story appears to have made upon him. True benevolence, indeed, extends itself
through the whole compass of existence, and sympathizes with the distress of every
creature of sensation. Little minds may be apt to consider a compassion of this
inferior kind as an instance of weakness; but it is undoubtedly the evidence of a noble
nature. Homer thought it not unbecoming the character even of a hero to melt into

LETTERS 353

it will be sufficient to describe the actual facts of the case without
suppression or diminution. Farewell.

CVIII
To Fuscus

You want to know how I portion out my day, in my summer
villa at Tuscum? I get up just when I please; generally about
sunrise, often earlier, but seldom later than this. I keep the shutters
closed, as darkness and silence wonderfully promote meditation.
Thus free and abstracted from those outward objects which dissipate
attention, I am left to my own thoughts; nor suffer my mind to
wander with my eyes, but keep my eyes in subjection to my mind,
which, when they are not distracted by a multiplicity of external
objects, see nothing but what the imagination represents to them.
If I have any work in hand, this is the time I choose for thinking it
out, word for word, even to the minutest accuracy of expression. In
this way I compose more or less, according as the subject is more or
less difficult, and I find myself able to retain it. I then call my
secretary, and, opening the shutters, dictate to him what I have put
into shape, after which I dismiss him, then call him in again, and
again dismiss him. About ten or eleven o'clock (for I do not observe
one fixed hour), according to the weather, I either walk upon my
terrace or in the covered portico, and there I continue to meditate
or dictate what remains upon the subject in which I am engaged.
This completed, I get into my chariot, where I employ myself as
before, when I was walking, or in my study; and find this change of
scene refreshes and keeps up my attention. On my return home, I
take a little nap, then a walk, and after that repeat out loud and
distinctly some Greek or Latin speech, not so much for the sake of

tears at a distress of this sort, and has given us a most amiable and affecting picture
of Ulysses weeping over his faithful dog Argus, when he expires at his feet:
. . .avrap 6 vtxrfav i&uv iiro/z6paTO Saxpu
ptla \a9uv Et'/zaioc. . . >
"Soft pity touch'd the mighty master's soul;
Adown his cheek the tear unbidden stole,
Stole unperceived; he turn'd his head and dry'd
The drop humane. . . ."

(Odyss. xvii. Pope.) M.

354 PLINY

strengthening my voice as my digestion; 1 though indeed the voice
at the same time is strengthened by this practice. I then take another
walk, am anointed, do my exercises, and go into the bath. At supper,
if I have only my wife or a few friends with me, some author is
read to us; and after supper we are entertained either with music
or an interlude. When that is finished, I take my walk with my
family, among whom I am not without some scholars. Thus we pass
our evenings in varied conversation; and the day, even when at the
longest, steals imperceptibly away. Upon some occasions I change
the order in certain of the articles above-mentioned. For instance,
if I have studied longer or walked more than usual, after my second
sleep, and reading a speech or two aloud, instead of using my chariot
I get on horseback; by which means I ensure as much exercise and
lose less time. The visits of my friends from the neighbouring villages
claim some part of the day; and sometimes, by an agreeable inter-
ruption, they come in very seasonably to relieve me when I am
feeling tired. I now and then amuse myself with hunting, but always
take my tablets into the field, that, if I should meet with no game,
I may at least bring home something. Part of my time too (though
not so much as they desire) is allotted to my tenants; whose rustic
complaints, along with these city occupations, make my literary
studies still more delightful to me. Farewell.

CIX

To PAULINUS

As you are not of a disposition to expect from your friends the
ordinary ceremonial observances of society when they cannot observe
them without inconvenience to themselves, so I love you too stead-
fastly to be apprehensive of your taking otherwise than I wish you
should my not waiting upon you on the first day of your entrance
upon the consular office, especially as I am detained here by the
necessity of letting my farms upon long leases. I am obliged to

1 By the regimen which Pliny here follows, one would imagine, if he had not told
as who were his physicians, that the celebrated Celsus was in the number. That
author expressly recommends reading aloud, and afterwards walking, as beneficial in
disorders of the stomach: "Si quis stomacho laborat, legere dare debef, post lectionem
ambularc," &c. Celsi Medic. 1. i., c. 8. M.

LETTERS 355

enter upon an entirely new plan with my tenants: for under the
former leases, though I made them very considerable abatements,
they have run greatly in arrear. For this reason several of them have
not only taken no sort of care to lessen a debt which they found
themselves incapable of wholly discharging, but have even seized
and consumed all the produce of the land, in the belief that it would
now be of no advantage to themselves to spare it. I must therefore
obviate this increasing evil, and endeavour to find out some remedy
against it. The only one I can think of is, not to reserve my rent
in money, but in kind, and so place some of my servants to overlook
the tillage, and guard the stock; as indeed there is no sort of revenue
more agreeable to reason than what arises from the bounty of the
soil, the seasons, and the climate. It is true, this method will require
great honesty, sharp eyes, and many hands. However, I must risk
the experiment, and, as in an inveterate complaint, try every change
of remedy. You see, it is not any pleasurable indulgence that pre-
vents my attending you on the first day of your consulship. I shall
celebrate it, nevertheless, as much as if I were present, and pay my
vows for you here, with all the warmest tokens of joy and congratu-
lation. Farewell.

CX

To Fuscus

You are much pleased, I find, with the account I gave you in my
former letter of how I spend the summer season at Tuscum, and
desire to know what alteration I make in my method when I am at
Laurentum in the winter. None at all, except abridging myself of
my sleep at noon, and borrowing a good piece of the night before
daybreak and after sunset for study: and if business is very urgent
(which in winter very frequently happens), instead of having inter-
ludes or music after supper, I reconsider whatever I have previously
dictated, and improve my memory at the same time by this frequent
mental revision. Thus I have given you a general sketch of my
mode of life in summer and winter; to which you may add the
intermediate seasons of spring and autumn, in which, while losing
nothing out of the day, I gain but little from the night. Farewell.

CORRESPONDENCE

WITH THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I 1

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE pious affection you bore, most sacred Emperor, to your
august father induced you to wish it might be late ere you succeeded
him. But the immortal gods thought proper to hasten the advance-
ment of those virtues to the helm of the commonwealth which had
already shared in the steerage. 2 May you then, and the world
through your means, enjoy every prosperity worthy of your reign:
to which let me add my wishes, most excellent Emperor, upon a
private as well as public account, that your health and spirits may
be preserved firm and unbroken.

1 The greater part of the following letters were written by PI; y during his adminis-
tration in the province of Bithynia. They are of a style and character extremely
different from those in the preceding collection; whence some critics have injudiciously
inferred that they are the production of another hand: not considering that the
occasion necessarily required a different manner. In letters of business, as these chiefly
are, turn and sentiment would be foreign and impertinent; politeness and elegance
of expression being the essentials that constitute perfection in this kind: and in that
view, though they may be less entertaining, they have not less merit than the former.
But besides their particular excellence as letters, they have a farther recommendation
as so many valuable pieces of history, by throwing a strong light upon the character
of one of the most amiable and glorious princes in the Roman annals. Trajan appears
throughout in the most striking attitude that majesty can be placed in; in the exertion of
power to the godlike purposes of justice and benevolence: and what one of the ancient
historians has said of him is here clearly verified, that "he rather chose to be loved
than flattered by his people." To have been distinguished by the favour and friend-
ship of a monarch of so exalted a character is an honour that reflects the brightest
lustre upon our author; as to have been served and celebrated by a courtier of Pliny's
genius and virtues is the noblest monument of glory that could have been raised to
Trajan. M.

2 Nerva, who succeeded Domitian, reigned but sixteen months and a few days.
Before his death he not only adopted Trajan, and named him for his successor, but
actually admitted him into a share of the government; giving him the tides of
Ccesar, Germanicus, and Imperator. Vid. Plin. Paneg. M.

356

LETTERS 357

II

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

You have occasioned me, Sir, an inexpressible pleasure in deem-
ing me worthy of enjoying the privilege which the laws confer on
those who have three children. For although it was from an indul-
gence to the request of the excellent Julius Servianus, your own
most devoted servant, that you granted this favour, yet I have the
satisfaction to find by the words of your rescript that you complied
the more willingly as his application was in my behalf. I cannot
but look upon myself as in possession of my utmost wish, after
having thus received, at the beginning of your most auspicious
reign, so distinguishing a mark of your peculiar favour; at the same
time that it considerably heightens my desire of leaving a family
behind me. I was not entirely without this desire even in the late
most unhappy times: as my two marriages will induce you to be-
lieve. But the gods decreed it better, by reserving every valuable
privilege to the bounty of your generous dispensations. And indeed
the pleasure of being a father will be so much more acceptable to me
now, that I can enjoy it in full security and happiness.

Ill
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE experience, most excellent Emperor, I have had of your
unbounded generosity to me, in my own person, encourages me to
hope I may be yet farther obliged to it, in that of my friends. Voco -
nius Romanus (who was my schoolfellow and companion from our
earliest years) claims the first rank in that number; in consequence
of which I petitioned your sacred father to promote him to the
dignity of the senatorial order. But the completion of my request is
reserved to your goodness; for his mother had not then advanced, in
the manner the law directs, the liberal gift of four hundred thousand
sesterces, 1 which she engaged to give him, in her letter to the late
emperor, your father. This, however, by my advice she has since

1 $16,000.

358 PLINY

done, having made over certain estates to him, as well as completed
every other act necessary to make the conveyance valid. The difficul-
ties therefore being removed which deferred the gratification of our
wishes, it is with full confidence I venture to assure you of the worth
of my friend Romanus, heightened and adorned as it is not only by
liberal culture, but by his extraordinary tenderness to his parents as
well. It is to that virtue he owes the present liberality of his mother;
as well as his immediate succession to his late father's estate, and his
adoption by his father-in-law. To these personal qualifications, the
wealth and rank of his family give additional lustre; and I persuade
myself it will be some further recommendation that I solicit in his
behalf. Let me, then, entreat you, Sir, to enable me to congratulate
Romanus on so desirable an occasion, and at the same time to
indulge an eager and, I hope, laudable ambition, of having it in my
power to boast that your favourable regards are extended not only to
myself, but also to my friend.

IV

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

WHEN by your gracious indulgence, Sir, I was appointed to pre-
side at the treasury of Saturn, I immediately renounced all engage-
ments of the bar (as indeed I never blended business of that kind
with the functions of the state), that no avocations might call off my
attention from the post to which I was appointed. For this reason,
when the province of Africa petitioned the senate that I might
undertake their cause against Marius Priscus, I excused myself from
that office; and my excuse was allowed. But when afterwards the
consul elect proposed that the senate should apply to us again, and
endeavour to prevail with us to yield to its inclinations, and suffer
our names to be thrown into the urn, I thought it most agreeable
to that tranquillity and good order which so happily distinguishes
your times not to oppose (especially in so reasonable an instance) the
will of that august assembly. And, as I am desirous that all my
words and actions may receive the sanction of your exemplary
virtue, I hope you approve of my compliance.

LETTERS 359

V

TRAJAN TO PLINY

You acted as became a good citizen and a worthy senator, by pay-
ing obedience to the just requisition of that august assembly: and I
have full confidence you will faithfully discharge the business you
have undertaken.

VI

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

HAVING been attacked last year by a very severe and dangerous
illness, I employed a physician, whose care and diligence, Sir, I
cannot sufficiently reward, but by your gracious assistance. I entreat
you therefore to make him a denizen of Rome; for as he is the
freedman of a foreign lady, he is, consequently, himself also a
foreigner. His name is Harpocras; his patroness (who has been dead
a considerable time) was Thermuthis, the daughter of Theon. I
further entreat you to bestow the full privileges of a Roman citizen
upon Hedia and Antonia Harmeris, the freedwomen of Antonia
Maximilla, a lady of great merit. It is at her desire I make this
request.

VII

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I RETURN you thanks, Sir, for your ready compliance with my
desire, in granting the complete privileges of a Roman to the freed-
women of a lady to whom I am allied, and also for making Harpo-
cras, my physician, a denizen of Rome. But when, agreeably to your
directions, I gave in an account of his age and estate, I was informed
by those who are better skilled in the affairs than I pretend to be,
that, as he is an Egyptian, I ought first to have obtained for him the
freedom of Alexandria before he was made free of Rome. I confess,
indeed, as I was ignorant of any difference in this case between those
of Egypt and other countries, I contented myself with only acquaint-
ing you that he had been manumitted by a foreign lady long since

3O PLINY

deceased. However, it is an ignorance I cannot regret, since it
affords me an opportunity of receiving from you a double obligation
in favour of the same person. That I may legally therefore enjoy
the benefit of your goodness, I beg you would be pleased to grant
him the freedom of the city of Alexandria, as well as that of Rome.
And that your gracious intentions may not meet with any further
obstacles, I have taken care, as you directed, to send an account to
your freedman of his age and possessions.

VIII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

IT is my resolution, in pursuance of the maxim observed by the
princes my predecessors, to be extremely cautious in granting the
freedom of the city of Alexandria: however, since you have ob-
tained of me the freedom of Rome for your physician Harpocras, I
cannot refuse you this other request. You must let me know to
what district he belongs, that I may give you a letter to my friend
Pompeius Planta, governor of Egypt.

IX
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I CANNOT express, Sir, the pleasure your letter gave me, by which
I am informed that you have made my physician Harpocras a deni-
zen of Alexandria; notwithstanding your resolution to follow the
maxim of your predecessors in this point, by being extremely cau-
tious in granting that privilege. Agreeably to your directions, I
acquaint you that Harpocras belongs to the district of Memphis. 1
I entreat you then, most gracious Emperor, to send me, as you
promised, a letter to your friend Pompeius Planta, governor of
Egypt.

As I purpose (in order to have the earliest enjoyment of your
presence, so ardently wished for here) to come to meet you, I beg,
Sir, you would permit me to extend my journey as far as possible.

1 One of the four governments of Lower Egypt. A/.

LETTERS 361

X

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I WAS greatly obliged, Sir, in my late illness, to Posthumius
Marinus, my physician; and I cannot make him a suitable return,
but by the assistance of your wonted gracious indulgence. I entreat
you then to make Chrysippus Mithridates and his wife Stratonica
(who are related to Marinus) denizens of Rome. I entreat likewise
the same privilege in favour of Epigonus and Mithridates, the two
sons of Chrysippus; but with this restriction, 1 that they may remain
under the dominion of their father, and yet reserve their right of
patronage over their own freedmen. I further entreat you to grant
the full privileges of a Roman to L. Satrius Abascantius, P. Czsius
Phosphorus, and Pancharia Soteris. This request I make with the
consent of their patrons.

XI

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

AFTER your late sacred father, Sir, had, in a noble speech, as well as
by his own generous example, exhorted and encouraged the public
to acts of munificence, I implored his permission to remove the
several statues which I had of the former emperors to my corporation,
and at the same time requested permission to add his own to the
number. For as I had hitherto let them remain in the respective
places in which they stood when they were left to me by several
different inheritances, they were dispersed in distant parts of my
estate. He was pleased to grant my request, and at the same time to

1 The extensive power of paternal authority was (as has been observed in the notes
above) peculiar to the Romans. But after Chrysippus was made a denizen of Rome,
he was not, it would seem, consequentially entitled to that privilege over those
children which were born before his denization. On the other hand, if it was expressly
granted him, his children could not preserve their right of patronage over their own
freedmen, because that right would of course devolve to their father, by means of
this acquired dominion over them. The denization therefore of his children is as
expressly solicited as his own. But both parties becoming Qtiirites, the children by
this creation, and not pleading in right of their father, would be patres jam. To
prevent which the clause is added, "ita tit sint in patris potestate": as there is another
to save to them their rights of patronage over their freedmen, though they were
reduced in patriam potestatem. M.

362 PLINY

give me a very ample testimony of his approbation. I immediately,
therefore, wrote to the decurii, to desire they would allot a piece
of ground, upon which I might build a temple at my own expense;
and they, as a mark of honour to my design, offered me the choice
of any site I might think proper. However, my own ill health in
the first place, and later that of your father, together with the duties
of that employment which you were both pleased to entrust me,
prevented my proceeding with that design. But I have now, I think,
a convenient opportunity of making an excursion for the purpose,
as my monthly attendance 1 ends on the ist of September, and there
are several festivals in the month following. My first request, then,
is that you would permit me to adorn the temple I am going to erect
with your statue, and next (in order to the execution of my design
with all the expedition possible) that you would indulge me with
leave of absence. It would ill become the sincerity I profess, were I
to dissemble that your goodness in complying with this desire will
at the same time be extremely serviceable to me in my own private
affairs. It is absolutely necessary I should not defer any longer the
letting of my lands in that province; for, besides that they amount
to above four hundred thousand sesterces, 2 the time for dressing the
vineyards is approaching, and that business must fall upon my new
tenants. The unfruitfulness of the seasons besides, for several years
past, obliges me to think of making some abatements in my rents;
which I cannot possibly settle unless I am present. I shall be in-
debted, then, to your indulgence, Sir, for the expedition of my work
of piety, and the settlement of my own private affairs, if you will be
pleased to grant me leave of absence 3 for thirty days. I cannot give

1 Pliny enjoyed the office of treasurer in conjunction with Cornutus Tertullus. It
was the custom at Rome for those who had colleagues to administer the duties of
their posts by monthly turns. Buchner. M.

2 About $16,000; the annual income of Pliny's estate in Tuscany. He mentions
another near Comum in Milan, the yearly value of which does not appear. We find
him likewise meditating the purchase of an estate, for which he was to give about
$117,000 of our money; but whether he ever completed that purchase is uncertain.
This, however, we are sure of, that his fortunes were but moderate, considering his
high station and necessary expenses: and yet, by the advantage of a judicious economy,
we have seen him, in the course of these letters, exercising a liberality of which
after-ages have furnished no parallel. M.

3 The senators were not allowed to go from Rome into the provinces without
having first obtained leave of the emperor. Sicily, however, had the privilege to be
excepted out of that law; as Gallia Narboncnsis aftcnvards was, by Claudius Caesar.
Tacit. Ann. xii., c. 23. M.

LETTERS 363

myself a shorter time, as the town and the estate of which I am
speaking lie above a hundred and fifty miles from Rome.

XII

TRAJAN TO PLINY

You have given me many private reasons, and every public one,
why you desire leave of absence; but I need no other than that it is
your desire : and I doubt not of your returning as soon as possible to
the duty of an office which so much requires your attendance. As
I would not seem to check any instance of your affection towards
me, I shall not oppose your erecting my statue in the place you desire;
though in general I am extremely cautious in giving any encourage-
ment to honours of that kind.

XIII
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

As I am sensible, Sir, that the highest applause my actions can
receive is to be distinguished by so excellent a prince, I beg you
would be graciously pleased to add either the office of augur or
septemvir 1 (both which are now vacant) to the dignity I already
enjoy by your indulgence; that I may have the satisfaction of publicly
offering up those vows for your prosperity, from the duty of my
office, which I daily prefer to the gods in private, from the affection
of my heart.

. HAVING safely passed the promontory of Malea, I am arrived at
Ephesus with all my retinue, notwithstanding I was detained for
some time by contrary winds: a piece of information, Sir, in which,
I trust, you will feel yourself concerned. I propose pursuing the

1 One of the seven priests who presided over the feasts appointed in honour of
Jupiter and the other gods; an office, as appears, of high dignity, since Pliny ranks
it with the augurship. M.

364 PLINY

remainder of my journey to the province 1 partly in light vessels, and
partly in post-chaises: for as the excessive heats will prevent my
travelling altogether by land, so the Etesian winds, 2 which are now
set in, will not permit me to proceed entirely by sea.

XV

TRAJAN TO PLINY

YOUR information, my dear Pliny, was extremely agreeable to me,
as it does concern me to know in what manner you arrive at your
province. It is a wise intention of yours to travel either by sea or
land, as you shall find most convenient.

XVI

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

As I had a very favourable voyage to Ephesus, so in travelling by
post-chaise from thence I was extremely troubled by the heats, and
also by some slight feverish attacks, which kept me some time at
Pergamus. From there, Sir, I got on board a coasting vessel, but,
being again detained by contrary winds, did not arrive at Bithynia
so soon as I had hoped. However, I have no reason to complain
of this delay, since (which indeed was the most auspicious circum-
stance that could attend me) I reached the province in time to cele-
brate your birthday. I am at present engaged in examining the
finances of the Prusenses, 3 their expenses, revenues, and credits; and
the farther I proceed in this work, the more I am convinced of the
necessity of my enquiry. Several large sums of money are owing to
the city from private persons, which they neglect to pay upon various
pretences; as, on the other hand, I find the public funds are, in

1 Bithynia, a province in Anatolia, or Asia Minor, of which Pliny was appointed
governor by Trajan, in the sixth year of his reign, A.D. 103, not as an ordinary
proconsul, but as that emperor's own lieutenant, with powers extraordinary. (See
Dio.) The following letters were written during his administration of that
province. Af.

2 A north wind in the Grecian seas, which rises yearly sometime in July, and
continues to the end of August; though others extend it to the middle of September.
They blow only in the daytime. Varenius's Geogr. v. i., p. 513. M.

3 The inhabitants of Prusa (Brusa), a principal city of Bithynia.

LETTERS 365

some instances, very unwarrantably applied. This, Sir, I write to
you immediately on my arrival. I entered this province on the lyth
of September/ and found in it that obedience and loyalty towards
yourself which you justly merit from all mankind. You will con-
sider, Sir, whether it would not be proper to send a surveyor here;
for I am inclined to think much might be deducted from what is
charged by those who have the conduct of the public works if a
faithful admeasurement were to be taken: at least I am of that
opinion from what I have already seen of the accounts of this city,
which I am now going into as fully as is possible.

XVII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

I SHOULD have rejoiced to have heard that you arrived at Bithynia
without the smallest inconvenience to yourself or any of your
retinue, and that your journey from Ephesus had been as easy as
your voyage to that place was favourable. For the rest, your letter
informs me, my dearest Secundus, on what day you reached Bithy-
nia. The people of that province will be convinced, I persuade my-
self, that I am attentive to their interest; as your conduct towards
them will make it manifest that I could have chosen no more proper
person to supply my place. The examination of the public accounts
ought certainly to be your first employment, as they are evidently
in great disorder. I have scarcely surveyors sufficient to inspect those
works 1 which I am carrying on at Rome, and in the neighbourhood;
but' persons of integrity and skill in this art may be found, most
certainly, in every province, so that they will not fail you if only
you will make due enquiry.

4 In the sixth year of Trajan's reign, A.D. 103, and the 4ist of our author's age:
he continued in this province about eighteen months. Vid. Mass, in Vit. Plin. 129. M.

1 Among other noble works which this glorious emperor executed, the forum or
square which went by his name seems to have been the most magnificent. It was
built with the foreign spoils he had taken in war. The covering of this edifice was
all brass, the porticoes exceedingly beautiful and magnificent, with pillars of more
than ordinary height and dimensions. M.

366 PLINY

XVIII

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THOUGH I am well assured, Sir, that you, who never omit any
opportunity of exerting your generosity, are not unmindful of the
request I lately made to you, yet, as you have often indulged me in
this manner, give me leave to remind and earnestly entreat you to
bestow the praetorship now vacant upon Attius Sura. Though his
ambition is extremely moderate, yet the quality of his birth, the
inflexible integrity he has preserved in a very narrow fortune, and,
more than all, the felicity of your times, which encourages conscious
virtue to claim your favour, induce him to hope he may experience
it in the present instance.

XIX

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I CONGRATULATE both you and the public, most excellent Emperor,
upon the great and glorious victory you have obtained; so agreeable
to the heroism of ancient Rome. May the immortal gods grant the
same happy success to all your designs, that, under the administration
of so many princely virtues, the splendour of the empire may shine
out, not only in its former, but with additional lustre. 1

XX

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

MY lieutenant, Servilius Pudens, came to Nicomedia, 2 Sir, on the
24th of November, and by his arrival freed me, at length, from the
anxiety of a very uneasy expectation.

1 It is probable the victory here alluded to was that famous one which Trajan
gained over the Dacians. It is certain, at least, Pliny lived to see his wish accom-
plished, this emperor having carried the Roman splendour to its highest pitch, and
extended the dominions of the empire farther than any of his predecessors; as after
his death it began to decline. A/.

2 The capital of Bithynia; its modern name is Izmid.

LETTERS 367

XXI
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

YOUR generosity to me, Sir, was the occasion of uniting me to
Rosianus Geminus, by the strongest ties; for he was my quaestor
when I was consul. His behaviour to me during the continuance
of our offices was highly respectful, and he has treated me ever since
with so peculiar a regard that, besides the many obligations I owe
him upon a public account, I am indebted to him for the strongest
pledges of private friendship. I entreat you, then, to comply with my
request for the advancement of one whom (if my recommendation
has any weight) you will even distinguish with your particular
favour; and whatever trust you shall repose in him, he will en-
deavour to show himself still deserving of an higher. But I am the
more sparing in my praises of him, being persuaded his integrity, his
probity, and his vigilance are well known to you, not only from those
high posts which he has exercised in Rome within your immediate
inspection, but from his behaviour when he served under you in the
army. One thing, however, my affection for him inclines me to
think, I have not yet sufficiently done; and therefore, Sir, I repeat
my entreaties that you will give me the pleasure, as early as possible,
of rejoicing in the advancement of my quaestor, or, in other words,
of receiving an addition to my own honours, in the person of my
friend.

XXII
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

IT is not easy, Sir, to express the joy I received when I heard you
had, in compliance with the request of my mother-in-law and
myself, granted Ccelius Clemens the proconsulship of this province
after the expiration of his consular office; as it is from thence I learn
the full extent of your goodness towards me, which thus graciously
extends itself through my whole family. As I dare not pretend to
make an equal return to those obligations I so justly owe you, I can
only have recourse to vows, and ardently implore the gods that I

368 PLINY

may not be found unworthy of those favours which you are repeat-
edly conferring upon me.

XXIII

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I RECEIVED, Sir, a despatch from your freedman, Lycormas, desiring
me, if any embassy from Bosporus 1 should come here on the way to
Rome, that I would detain it till his arrival. None has yet arrived,
at least in the city 2 where I now am. But a courier passing through
this place from the king of Sarmatia, 3 I embrace the opportunity
which accidentally offers itself, of sending with him the messenger
whom Lycormas despatched hither, that you might be informed by
both their letters of what, perhaps, it may be expedient you should be
acquainted with at one and the same time.

XXIV

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I AM informed by a letter from the king of Sarmatia that there are
certain affairs of which you ought to be informed as soon as possible.
In order, therefore, to hasten the despatches which his courier was
charged with to you, I granted him an order to make use of the
public post. 4

1 The town of Panticapoeum, also called Bosporus, standing on the European side
of the Cimmerian Bosporus (Straits of Kaffa), in the modern Crimea.

2 Nicea (as appears by the i5th letter of this book), a city in Bithynia, now called
Isnik. M.

3 Sarmatia was divided into European, Asiatic, and German Sarmatia. It is not
exactly known what bounds the ancients gave to this extensive region; however, in
general, it comprehended the northern part of Russia, and the greater part of Poland,
&c. M.

4 The first invention of public couriers is ascribed to Cyrus, who, in order to receive
the earliest intelligence from the governors of the several provinces, erected post-
houses throughout the kingdom of Persia, at equal distances, which supplied men
and horses to forward the public despatches. Augustus was the first who introduced
this most useful institution among the Romans, by employing post-chaises, disposed
at convenient distances, for the purpose of political intelligence. The magistrates
of every city were obliged to furnish horses for these messengers, upon producing
a diploma, or a kind of warrant, either from the emperor himself or from those who
had that authority under him. Sometimes, though upon very extraordinary occasions,
persons who travelled upon their private affairs, were allowed the use of these post-
chaises. It is surprising they were not sooner used for the purposes of commerce and
private communication. Louis XI. first established them in France, in the year 1474;
but it was not till the iath of Car. II. that the post-office was settled in England by
Act of Parliament. M.

LETTERS 369

XXV

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE ambassador from the king of Sarmatia having remained two
days, by his own choice, at Nicea, I did not think it reasonable, Sir,
to detain him any longer: because, in the first place, it was still
uncertain when your freedman, Lycormas, would arrive, and then
again some indispensable affairs require my presence in a different
part of the province. Of this I thought it necessary that you should
be informed, because I lately acquainted you in a letter that Lycor-
mas had desired, if any embassy should come this way from Bos-
porus, that I would detain it till his arrival. But I saw no plausible
pretext for keeping him back any longer, especially as the despatches
from Lycormas, which (as I mentioned before) I was not willing to
detain, would probably reach you some days sooner than this
ambassador.

XXVI
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I RECEIVED a letter, Sir, from Apuleius, a military man, belonging
to the garrison at Nicomedia, informing me that one Callidromus,
being arrested by Maximus and Dionysius (two bakers, to whom he
had hired himself), fled for refuge to your statue; 1 that, being
brought before a magistrate, he declared he was formerly slave to
Laberius Maximus, but being taken prisoner by Susagus 2 in Mcesia, 3
he was sent as a present from Decebalus to Pacorus, king of Parthia,
in whose service he continued several years, from whence he made
his escape, and came to Nicomedia. When he was examined before

1 Particular temples, altars, and statues were allowed among the Romans as places
of privilege and sanctuary to slaves, debtors, and malefactors. This custom was
introduced by Romulus, who borrowed it probably from the Greeks; but during the
free state of Rome, few of these asylums were permitted. This custom prevailed most
under the emperors, till it grew so scandalous that the Emperor Pius found it necessary
to restrain those privileged places by an edict. See Lipsii Excurs. ad Taciti Ann. iii.,
c. 36. M.

* General under Decebalus, king of the Dacians. M.

3 A province in Dacia, comprehending the southern parts of Servia and part of
Bulgaria. M.

370 PLINY

me,he confirmed this account, for which reason I thought it necessary
to send 4 him to you. This I should have done sooner, but I delayed
his journey in order to make an enquiry concerning a seal ring
which he said was taken from him, upon which was engraven the
figure of Pacorus in his royal robes; I was desirous (if it could have
been found) of transmitting this curiosity to you, with a small gold
nugget which he says he brought from out of the Parthian mines.
I have affixed my seal to it, the impression of which is a chariot
drawn by four horses.

XXVII
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

YOUR freedman and procurator, 1 Maximus, behaved, Sir, during
all the time we were together, with great probity, attention, and
diligence; as one strongly attached to your interest, and strictly ob-
servant of discipline. This testimony I willingly give him; and I
give it with all the fidelity I owe you.

XXVIII
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

AFTER having experienced, Sir, in Gabius Bassus, who commands
on the Pontic 2 coast, the greatest integrity, honour, and diligence, as
well as the most particular respect to myself, I cannot refuse him
my best wishes and suffrage; and I give them to him with all that
fidelity which is due to you. I have found him abundantly qualified
by having served in the army under you; and it is owing to the
advantages of your discipline that he has learned to merit your
favour. The soldiery and the people here, who have had full experi-
ence of his justice and humanity, rival each other in that glorious
testimony they give of his conduct, both in public and in private;

4 The second expedition of Trajan against Decebalus was undertaken the same
year that Pliny went governor into this province; the reason therefore why Pliny sent
this Callidromus to the emperor seems to be that some use might possibly be made
of him in favour of that design. M.

1 Receiver of the finances. A/.

2 The coast round the Black Sea.

LETTERS 371

and I certify this with all the sincerity you have a right to expect
from me.

XXIX

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

NYMPHIDIUS Lupus, 1 Sir, and myself, served in the army together;
he commanded a body of the auxiliary forces at the same time that I
was military tribune; and it was from thence my affection for him
began. A long acquaintance has since mutually endeared and
strengthened our friendship. For this reason I did violence to his
repose, and insisted upon his attending me into Bithynia, as my
assessor in council. He most readily granted me this proof of his
friendship; and without any regard to the plea of age, or the ease
of retirement, he shared, and continues to share, with me, the fatigue
of public business. I consider his relations, therefore, as my own; in
which number Nymphidius Lupus, his son, claims my particular
regard. He is a youth of great merit and indefatigable application,
and in every respect well worthy of so excellent a father. The early
proof he gave of his merit, when he commanded a regiment of foot,
shews him to be equal to any honour you may think proper to confer
upon him; and it gained him the strongest testimony of approbation
from those most illustrious personages, Julius Ferox and Fuscus
Salinator. And I will add, Sir, that I shall rejoice in any accession of
dignity which he shall receive, as an occasion of particular satisfac-
tion to myself.

XXX

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I BEG your determination, Sir, on a point I am exceedingly doubtful
about: it is whether I should place the public slaves 2 as sentries round
the prisons of the several cities in this province (as has been hitherto
the practice) or employ a party of soldiers for that purpose ? On the
one hand, I am afraid the public slaves will not attend this duty

1 The text calls him primipilarem, that is, one who had been primipilus, an officer
in the army, whose post was both highly honourable and profitable; among other
parts of his office he had the care of the eagle, or chief standard of the legion. M.

2 Slaves who were purchased by the public. Af.

372 PLINY

with the fidelity they ought; and, on the other, that it will engage
too large a body of the soldiery. In the meanwhile I have joined a
few of the latter with the former. I am apprehensive, however, there
may be some danger that this method will occasion a general neglect
of duty, as it will afford them a mutual opportunity of throwing the
blame upon each other.

XXXI
TRAJAN TO PLINY

THERE is no occasion, my dearest Secundus, to draw off any sol-
diers in order to guard the prisons. Let us rather persevere in the
ancient customs observed in this province, of employing the public
slaves for that purpose; and the fidelity with which they shall execute
their duty will depend much upon your care and strict discipline.
It is greatly to be feared, as you observe, if the soldiers should be
mixed with the public slaves, they will mutually trust to each
other, and by that means grow so much the more negligent. But
my principal objection is that as few soldiers as possible should be
withdrawn from their standard.

XXXII

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

GABIUS BASSUS, who commands upon the frontiers of Pontica, in
a manner suitable to the respect and duty which he owes you, came
to me, and has been with me, Sir, for several days. As far as I could
observe, he is a person of great merit and worthy of your favour. I
acquainted him it was your order that he should retain only ten
beneficiary 1 soldiers, two horse-guards, and one centurion out of the
troops which you were pleased to assign to my command. He assured
me those would not be sufficient, and that he would write to you

J The most probable conjecture (for it is a point of a good deal of obscurity)
concerning the benefidarii seems to be that they were a certain number of soldiers
exempted from the usual duty of their office, in order to be employed as a sort of
body-guards to the general. These were probably foot; as the equites here mentioned
were perhaps of the same nature, only that they served on horseback. Equites
singtilares Ccesarls August!, &c., are frequently met with upon ancient inscriptions,
and are generally supposed to mean the body-guards of the emperor. M.

LETTERS 373

accordingly; for which reason I thought it proper not immediately to
recall his supernumeraries.

XXXIII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

I HAVE received from Gabius Bassus the letter you mention,
acquainting me that the number of soldiers I had ordered him was
not sufficient; and for your information I have directed my answer
to be hereunto annexed. It is very material to distinguish between
what the exigency of affairs requires and what an ambitious desire
of extending power may think necessary. As for ourselves, the public
welfare must be our only guide: accordingly it is incumbent upon us
to take all possible care that the soldiers shall not be absent from their
standard.

XXXIV
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE Prusenses, Sir, having an ancient bath which lies in a ruinous
state, desire your leave to repair it; but, upon examination, I am
of opinion it ought to be rebuilt. I think, therefore, you may indulge
them in this request, as there will be a sufficient fund for that pur-
pose, partly from those debts which are due from private persons to
the public which I am now collecting in; and partly from what they
raise among themselves towards furnishing the bath with oil, which
they are willing to apply to the carrying on of this building; a work
which the dignity of the city and the splendour of your times seem
to demand.

XXXV

TRAJAN TO PLINY

IF the erecting a public bath will not be too great a charge upon
the Prusenses, we may comply with their request; provided, how-
ever, that no new tax be levied for this purpose, nor any of those
taken off which are appropriated to necessary services.

374 PLINY

XXXVI

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I AM assured, Sir, by your freedman and receiver-general Maximus,
that it is necessary he should have a party of soldiers assigned to him,
over and besides the bcneficiarii, whom by your orders I allotted
to the very worthy Gemellinus. Those, therefore, whom I found in
his service, I thought proper he should retain, especially as he was
going into Paphlagonia, 1 in order to procure corn. For his better
protection likewise, and because it was his request, I added two of
the cavalry. But I beg you would inform me, in your next despatches,
what method you would have me observe for the future in points
of this nature.

XXXVII

TRAJAN TO PLINY

As my freedman Maximus was going upon an extraordinary
commission to procure corn, I approve of your having supplied him
with a file of soldiers. But when he shall return to the duties of his
former post, I think two from you and as many from his coadjutor,
my receiver-general Virdius Gemellinus, will be sufficient.

XXXVIII
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE very excellent young man Sempronius Caslianus, having
discovered two slaves 2 among the recruits, has sent them to me. But

1 A province in Asia Minor, bounded by the Black Sea on the north, Bithynia on
the west, Pontus on the east, and Phrygia on the south.

2 The Roman policy excluded slaves from entering into military service, and it
was death if they did so. However, upon cases of great necessity, this maxim was
dispensed with; but then they were first made free before they were received into the
army, excepting only (as Servius in his notes upon Virgil observes) after the fatal
battle of Cannz; when the public distress was so great that the Romans recruited
their army with their slaves, though they had not time to give them their freedom.
One reason, perhaps, of this policy might be that they did not think it safe to arm
so considerable a body of men, whose numbers, in the times when the Roman luxury
was at its highest, we may have some idea of by the instance which Pliny the
naturalist mentions of Claudius Isodorus, who at the time of his death was possessed
of no less than 4,116 slaves, notwithstanding he had lost great numbers in the civil
wars. Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiii. 10. M.

LETTERS 375

I deferred passing sentence till I had consulted you, the restorer
and upholder of military discipline, concerning the punishment
proper to be inflicted upon them. My principal doubt is this, whether
although they have taken the military oath, they are yet entered
into any particular legion. I request you, therefore, Sir, to inform
me what course I should pursue in this affair, especially as it concerns
example.

XXXIX

TRAJAN TO PLINY

SEMPRONIUS GELIANUS has acted agreeably to my orders, in send-
ing such persons to be tried before you as appear to deserve capital
punishment. It is material, however, in the case in question, to
enquire whether these slaves enlisted themselves voluntarily, or were
chosen by the officers, or presented as substitutes for others. If they
were chosen, the officer is guilty; if they are substitutes, the blame
rests with those who deputed them; but if, conscious of the legal
inabilities of their station, they presented themselves voluntarily, the
punishment must fall upon their own heads. That they are not yet
entered into any legion, makes no great difference in their case; for
they ought to have given a true account of themselves immediately
upon their being approved as fit for the service.

XL

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

As I have your permission, Sir, to address myself to you in all my
doubts, you will not consider it beneath your dignity to descend to
those humbler affairs which concern my administration of this
province. I find there are in several cities, particularly those of Nico-
media and Nicea, certain persons who take upon themselves to act
as public slaves, and receive an annual stipend accordingly; notwith-
standing they have been condemned either to the mines, the public
games, 1 or other punishments of the like nature. Having received

1 A punishment among the Romans, usually inflicted upon slaves, by which they
were to engage with wild beasts, or perform the part of gladiators, in the public
shows. M.

PLINY

information of this abuse, I have been long debating with myself what
I ought to do. On the one hand, to send them back again to their
respective punishments (many of them being now grown old, and
behaving, as I am assured, with sobriety and modesty) would, I
thought, be proceeding against them too severely; on the other, to
retain convicted criminals in the public service, seemed not altogether
decent. I considered at the same time to support these people in
idleness would be an useless expense to the public; and to leave them
to starve would be dangerous. I was obliged, therefore, to suspend
the determination of this matter till I could consult with you.
You will be desirous, perhaps, to be informed how it happened
that these persons escaped the punishments to which they were
condemned. This enquiry I have also made, but cannot return you
any satisfactory answer. The decrees against them were indeed
produced; but no record appears of their having ever been reversed.
It was asserted, however, that these people were pardoned upon
their petition to the proconsuls, or their lieutenants; which seems
likely to be the truth, as it is improbable any person would have
dared to set them at liberty without authority.

XLI
TRAJAN TO PLINY

You will remember you were sent into Bithynia for the particular
purpose of correcting those many abuses which appeared in need
of reform. Now none stands more so than that criminals who have
been sentenced to punishment should not only be set at liberty
(as your letter informs me) without authority, but even appointed
to employments which ought only to be exercised by persons whose
characters are irreproachable. Those, therefore, among them who
have been convicted within these ten years, and whose sentence
has not been reversed by proper authority, must be sent back again
to their respective punishments: but where more than ten years
have elapsed since their conviction, and they are grown old and
infirm, let them be disposed of in such employments as are but few
degrees removed from the punishments to which they were sen-
tenced; that is, either to attend upon the public baths, cleanse the

LETTERS 377

common sewers, or repair the streets and highways, the usual offices
assigned to such persons.

XLII
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

WHILE I was making a progress in a different part of the province,
a most extensive fire broke out at Nicomedia, which not only
consumed several private houses, but also two public buildings;
the town-house and the temple of Isis, though they stood on contrary
sides of the street. The occasion of its spreading thus far was partly
owing to the violence of the wind, and partly to the indolence of
the people, who, manifestly, stood idle and motionless spectators
of this terrible calamity. The truth is the city was not furnished
with either engines, 1 buckets, or any single instrument suitable for
extinguishing fires; which I have now, however, given directions
to have prepared. You will consider, Sir, whether it may not be
advisable to institute a company of firemen, consisting only of one
hundred and fifty members. I will take care none but those of
that business shall be admitted into it, and that the privileges granted
them shall not be applied to any other purpose. As this corporate
body will be restricted to so small a number of members, it will
be easy to keep them under proper regulation.

XLIII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

You are of opinion it would be proper to establish a company of
firemen in Nicomedia, agreeably to what has been practised in

1 It has been generally imagined that the ancients had not the art of raising water
by engines; but this passage seems to favour the contrary opinion. The word in the
original is sipho, which Hesychius explains (as one of the commentators observes),
"instrumentum ad jaculandas aquas adversus incendia"; "an instrument to throw up
water against fires." But there is a passage in Seneca which seems to put this matter
beyond conjecture, though none of the critics upon this place have taken notice of it:
"Solemns," says he, "ditabiis manibus inter se junctis aquam concipere, et compressa
utrimque palma in modum siphonis exprimere" (Q. N. 1. ii. 16); where we plainly
see the use of this sipho was to throw up water, and consequently the Romans were
acquainted with that art. The account which Pliny gives of his fountains at Tuscum
is likewise another evident proof. M .

37^ PLINY

several other cities. But it is to be remembered that societies of this
sort have greatly disturbed the peace of the province in general, and
of those cities in particular. Whatever name we give them, and
for whatever purposes they may be founded, they will not fail to
form themselves into factious assemblies, however short their meet-
ings may be. It will therefore be safer to provide such machines as
are of service in extinguishing fires, enjoining the owners of houses
to assist in preventing the mischief from spreading, and, if it should
be necessary, to call in the aid of the populace.

XLIV
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

WE have acquitted, Sir, and renewed our annual vows 1 for your
prosperity, in which that of the empire is essentially involved, im-
ploring the gods to grant us ever thus to pay and thus to repeat
them.

XLV

TRAJAN TO PLINY

I RECEIVED the satisfaction, my dearest Secundus, of being informed
by your letter that you, together with the people under your govern-
ment, have both discharged and renewed your vows to the immortal
gods for my health and happiness.

XLVI
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE citizens of Nicomedia, Sir, have expended three million,
three hundred and twenty-nine sesterces 2 in building an aqueduct;
but, not being able to finish it, the works are entirely falling to
ruin. They made a second attempt in another place, where they laid
out two millions. 3 But this likewise is discontinued; so that, after
having been at an immense charge to no purpose, they must still
be at a further expense, in order to be accommodated with water. I

1 This was an anniversary custom observed throughout the empire on the joth of
December. M. 2 About 132,000. 3 About $80,000.

LETTERS 379

have examined a fine spring from whence the water may be con-
veyed over arches (as was attempted in their first design) in such
a manner that the higher as well as level and low parts of the city
may be supplied. There are still remaining a very few of the old
arches; and the square stones, moreover, employed in the former
building, may be used in turning the new arches. I am of opinion
part should be raised with brick, as that will be the easier and
cheaper material. But that this work may not meet with the
same ill success as the former, it will be necessary to send here an
architect, or someone skilled in the construction of this kind of
waterworks. And I will venture to say, from the beauty and useful-
ness of the design, it will be an erection well worthy the splendour
of your times.

XLVII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

CARE must be taken to supply the city of Nicomedia with water;
and that business, I am well persuaded, you will perform with all
the diligence you ought. But really it is no less incumbent upon
you to examine by whose misconduct it has happened that such
large sums have been thrown away upon this, lest they apply the
money to private purposes, and the aqueduct in question, like the
preceding, should be begun, and afterwards left unfinished. You
will let me know the result of your enquiry.

XLVIII
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE citizens of Nicea, Sir, are building a theatre, which, though
it is not yet finished, has already exhausted, as I am informed (for
I have not examined the account myself), above ten millions of
sesterces; 1 and, what is worse, I fear to no purpose. For either from
the foundation being laid in soft, marshy ground, or that the stone

1 About $400,000. To those who are not acquainted with the immense riches of
the ancients, it may seem incredible that a city, and not the capital one either, of
a conquered province should expend so large a sum of money upon only the shell
(as it appears to be) of a theatre: but Asia was esteemed the most considerable part
of the world for wealth; its fertility and exportations (as Tully observes) exceeding
those of all other countries. M.

380 PLINY

itself is light and crumbling, the walls are sinking, and cracked
from top to bottom. It deserves your consideration, therefore,
whether it would be best to carry on this work, or entirely discon-
tinue it, or rather, perhaps, whether it would not be most prudent
absolutely to destroy it: for the buttresses and foundations by means
of which it is from time to time kept up appear to me more
expensive than solid. Several private persons have undertaken to
build the compartments of this theatre at their own expense, some
engaging to erect the portico, others the galleries over the pit: 2 but
this design cannot be executed, as the principal building which
ought first to be completed is now at a stand. This city is also
rebuilding, upon a far more enlarged plan, the gymnasium, 3 which
was burnt down before my arrival in the province. They have
already been at some (and, I rather fear, a fruitless) expense. The
structure is not only irregular and ill-proportioned, but the present
architect (who, it must be owned, is a rival to the person who was
first employed) asserts that the walls, although twenty-two feet 4
in thickness, are not strong enough to support the superstructure,
as the interstices are filled up with quarry-stones, and the walls are
not overlaid with brickwork. Also the inhabitants of Claudiopolis 5
are sinking (I cannot call it erecting) a large public bath, upon a
low spot of ground which lies at the foot of a mountain. The fund
appropriated for the carrying on of this work arises from the money
which those honorary members you were pleased to add to the
senate paid (or, at least, are ready to pay whenever I call upon
them) for their admission. 6 As I am afraid, therefore, the public
money in the city of Nicea, and (what is infinitely more valuable
than any pecuniary consideration) your bounty in that of Nicopolis,
should be ill applied, I must desire you to send hither an architect

2 The word cavea, in the original, comprehends more than what we call the pit in
our theatres, as it means the whole space in which the spectators sat. These theatres,
being open at the top, the galleries here mentioned were for the convenience of
retiring in bad weather. M.

3 A place in which the athletic exercises were performed, and where the philosophers
also used to read their lectures. M.

4 The Roman foot consisted of 11.7 inches of our standard. M.

5 A colony in the district of Cataonia, in Cappadocia.

6 The honorary senators, that is, such who were not received into the council of
the city by election, but by the appointment of the emperor, paid a certain sum
of money upon their admission into the senate. M.

LETTERS 381

to inspect, not only the theatre, but the bath; in order to consider
whether, after all the expense which has already been laid out, it
will be better to finish them upon the present plan, or alter the one,
and remove the other, in as far as may seem necessary: for other-
wise we may perhaps throw away our future cost in endeavouring
not to lose what we have already expended.

XLIX
TRAJAN TO PLINY

You, who are upon the spot, will best be able to consider and
determine what is proper to be done concerning the thep.tre which
the inhabitants of Nicea are building; as for myself, it will be
sufficient if you let me know your determination. With respect to
the particular parts of this theatre which are to be raised at a private
charge, you will see those engagements fulfilled when the body
of the building to which they are to be annexed shall be finished.
These paltry Greeks 1 are, I know, immoderately fond of gymnastic
diversions, and therefore, perhaps, the citizens of Nicea have planned
a more magnificent building for this purpose than is necessary;
however, they must be content with such as will be sufficient to
answer the purpose for which it is intended. I leave it entirely to
you to persuade the Claudiopolitani as you shall think proper with
regard to their bath, which they have placed, it seems, in a very
improper situation. As there is no province that is not furnished
with men of skill and ingenuity, you cannot possibly want architects;
unless you think it the shortest way to procure them from Rome,
when it is generally from Greece that they come to us.

WHEN I reflect upon the splendour of your exalted station, and
the magnanimity of your spirit, nothing, I am persuaded, can be
more suitable to both than to point out to you such works as are

1 "Grceculi. Even under the empire, with its relaxed morality and luxurious tone,
the Romans continued to apply this contemptuous designation to a people to whom
they owed what taste for art and culture they possessed." Church and Brodribb.

382 PLINY

worthy of your glorious and immortal name, as being no less useful
than magnificent. Bordering upon the territories of the city of
Nicomedia is a most extensive lake; over which marbles, fruits,
woods, and all kinds of materials, the commodities of the country,
are brought over in boats up to the highroad, at little trouble and
expense, but from thence are conveyed in carriages to the seaside,
at a much greater charge and with great labour. To remedy this
inconvenience, many hands will be in request; but upon such an
occasion they cannot be wanting: for the country, and particularly
the city, is exceedingly populous; and one may assuredly hope that
every person will readily engage in a work which will be of universal
benefit. It only remains then to send hither, if you shall think
proper, a surveyor or an architect, in order to examine whether the
lake lies above the level of the sea; the engineers of this province
being of opinion that the former is higher by forty cubits. 1 I find
there is in the neighbourhood of this place a large canal, which was
cut by a king of this country; but as it is left unfinished, it is
uncertain whether it was for the purpose of draining the adjacent
fields, or making a communication between the lake and the river.
It is equally doubtful too whether the death of the king, or the
despair of being able to accomplish the design, prevented the com-
pletion of it. If this was the reason, I am so much the more eager
and warmly desirous, for the sake of your illustrious character (and
I hope you will pardon me the ambition), that you may have the
glory of executing what kings could only attempt.

LI
TRAJAN TO PLINY

THERE is something in the scheme you propose of opening a com-
munication between the lake and the sea, which may, perhaps,
tempt me to consent. But you must first carefully examine the
situation of this body of water, what quantity it contains, and from
whence it is supplied; lest, by giving it an opening into the sea, it
should be totally drained. You may apply to Calpurnius Macer for

1 A Roman cubit is equal to T foot, 5.406 inches of our measure. Arbuthnot's
Tab. M.

LETTERS 383

an engineer, and I will also send you from hence someone skilled
in works of this nature.

LII

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

UPON examining into the public expenses of the city of Byzantium,
which, I find, are extremely great, I was informed, Sir, that the
appointments of the ambassador whom they send yearly to you with
their homage, and the decree which passes in the senate upon
that occasion, amount to twelve thousand sesterces. 1 But knowing
the generous maxims of your government, I thought proper to send
the decree without the ambassador, that, at the same time they dis-
charged their public duty to you, their expense incurred in the
manner of paying it might be lightened. This city is likewise
taxed with the sum of three thousand sesterces 2 towards defraying
the expense of an envoy, whom they annually send to compliment
the governor of Mcesia: this expense I have also directed to be spared.
I beg, Sir, you would deign either to confirm my judgment or correct
my error in these points, by acquainting me with your sentiments.

LIII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

I ENTIRELY approve, my dearest Secundus, of your having excused
the Byzantines that expense of twelve thousand sesterces in sending
an ambassador to me. I shall esteem their duty as sufficiently paid,
though I only receive the act of their senate through your hands.
The governor of Mcesia must likewise excuse them if they com-
pliment him at a less expense.

LIV

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I BEG, Sir, you would settle a doubt I have concerning your
diplomas} 3 whether you think proper that those diplomas the dates

1 About $480. 2 About $120.

3 A diploma is properly a grant of certain privileges either to particular places or
persons. It signifies also grants of other kinds; and it sometimes means post-warrants,
as, perhaps, it does in this place. M.

384 PLINY

of which are expired shall continue in force, and for how long?
For I am apprehensive I may, through ignorance, either confirm
such of these instruments as are illegal or prevent the effect of those
which are necessary.

LV
TRAJAN TO PLINY

THE diplomas whose dates are expired must by no means be
made use of. For which reason it is an inviolable rule with me
to send new instruments of this kind into all the provinces before
they are immediately wanted.

LVI

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

UPON intimating, Sir, my intention to the city of Apamea, 1 of
examining into the state of their public dues, their revenue and
expenses, they told me they were all extremely willing I should
inspect their accounts, but that no proconsul had ever yet looked
them over, as they had a privilege (and that of a very ancient date)
of administering the affairs of their corporation in the manner they
thought proper. I required them to draw up a memorial of what
they then asserted, which I transmit to you precisely as I received
it; though I am sensible it contains several things foreign to the
question. I beg you will deign to instruct me as to how I am to
act in this affair, for I should be extremely sorry either to exceed or
fall short of the duties of my commission.

LVII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

THE memorial of the Apameans annexed to your letter has saved
me the necessity of considering the reasons they suggest why the
former proconsuls forebore to inspect their accounts, since they
are willing to submit them to your examination. Their honest
compliance deserves to be rewarded; and they may be assured the

1 A city in Bithynia. M.

LETTERS 385

enquiry you are to make in pursuance of my orders shall be with
a full reserve to their privileges.

LV1II

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE Nicomedians, Sir, before my arrival in this province, had
begun to build a new forum adjoining their former, in a corner
of which stands an ancient temple dedicated to the mother of the
gods. 1 This fabric must either be repaired or removed, and for this
reason chiefly, because it is a much lower building than that very
lofty one which is now in process of erection. Upon enquiry whether
this temple had been consecrated, I was informed that their cere-
monies of dedication differ from ours. You will be pleased, there-
fore, Sir, to consider whether a temple which has not been con-
secrated according to our rites may be removed, 2 consistently with
the reverence due to religion: for, if there should be no objection
from that quarter, the removal in every other respect would be
extremely convenient.

LIX

TRAJAN TO PLINY

You may without scruple, my dearest Secundus, if the situation
requires it, remove the temple of the mother of the gods, from the
place where it now stands, to any other spot more convenient. You
need be under no difficulty with respect to the act of dedication;
for the ground of a foreign city 3 is not capable of receiving that
kind of consecration which is sanctified by our laws.

LX

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

WE have celebrated, Sir (with those sentiments of joy your virtues
so justly merit), the day of your accession to the empire, which

1 Cybele, Rhca, or Ops, as she is otherwise called; from whom, according to the
pagan creed, the rest of the gods are supposed to have descended. M.

2 Whatever was legally consecrated was ever afterwards unapplicable to profane
uses. M.

3 That is, a city not admitted to enjoy the laws and privileges of Rome. M.

386 PLINY

was also its preservation, imploring the gods to preserve you in
health and prosperity; for upon your welfare the security and
repose of the world depend. I renewed at the same time the oath
of allegiance at the head of the army, which repeated it after me
in the usual form, the people of the province zealously concurring
in the same oath.

LXI
TRAJAN TO PLINY

YOUR letter, my dearest Secundus, was extremely acceptable, as
it informed me of the zeal and affection with which you, together
with the army and the provincials, solemnized the day of my acces-
sion to the empire.

LXII

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE debts which were owing to the public are, by the prudence,
Sir, of your counsels, and the care of my administration, either
actually paid in or now being collected: but I am afraid the money
must lie unemployed. For as, on one side, there are few or no
opportunities of purchasing land, so, on the other, one cannot meet
with any person who is willing to borrow of the public 1 (especially
at 12 per cent, interest) when they can raise money upon the same
terms from private sources. You will consider then, Sir, whether
it may not be advisable, in order to invite responsible persons to
take this money, to lower the interest; or if that scheme should
not succeed, to place it in the hands of the decurii, upon their
giving sufficient security to the public. And though they should
not be willing to receive it, yet as the rate of interest will be dim-
inished, the hardship will be so much the less.

1 The reason why they did not choose to borrow of the public at the same rate of
interest which they paid to private persons was (as one of the commentators observes)
because in the former instance they were obliged to give security, whereas in the
latter they could raise money upon their personal credit. A/.

LETTERS 387

LXIII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

I AGREE with you, my dear Pliny, that there seems to be no other
method of facilitating the placing out of the public money than by
lowering the interest; the measure of which you will determine
according to the number of the borrowers. But to compel persons
to receive it who are not disposed to do so, when possibly they them-
selves may have no opportunity of employing it, is by no means
consistent with the justice of my government.

LXIV
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I RETURN you my warmest acknowledgments, Sir, that, among
the many important occupations in which you are engaged, you
have condescended to be my guide on those points on which I have
consulted you: a favour which I must now again beseech you to
grant me. A certain person presented himself with a complaint
that his adversaries, who had been banished for three years by the
illustrious Servilius Calvus, still remained in the province: they, on
the contrary, affirmed that Calvus had revoked their sentence, and
produced his edict to that effect. I thought it necessary, therefore,
to refer the whole affair to you. For as I have your express orders
not to restore any person who has been sentenced to banishment
either by myself or others, so I have no directions with respect to
those who, having been banished by some of my predecessors in
this government, have by them also been restored. It is necessary
for me, therefore, to beg you would inform me, Sir, how I am to
act with regard to the above-mentioned persons, as well as others,
who, after having been condemned to perpetual banishment, have
been found in the province without permission to return; for
cases of that nature have likewise fallen under my cognizance. A
person was brought before me who had been sentenced to perpetual
exile by the proconsul Julius Bassus, but knowing that the acts
of Bassus, during his administration, had been rescinded, and that

388 PLINY

the senate had granted leave to all those who had fallen under his
condemnation of appealing from his decision at any time within
the space of two years, I enquired of this man whether he had
accordingly stated his case to the proconsul. He replied he had not.
I beg then you would inform me whether you would have him
sent back into exile, or whether you think some more severe and
what kind of punishment should be inflicted upon him, and such
others who may hereafter be found under the same circumstances.
I have annexed to my letter the decree of Calvus, and the edict by
which the persons above-mentioned were restored, as also the decree
of Bassus.

LXV

TRAJAN TO PLINY

I WILL let you know my determination concerning those exiles
who were banished for three years by the proconsul P. Servilius
Calvus, and soon afterwards restored to the province by his edict,
when I shall have informed myself from him of the reasons of
this proceeding. With respect to that person who was sentenced
to perpetual banishment by Julius Bassus, yet continued to remain
in the province, without making his appeal if he thought himself
aggrieved (though he had two years given him for that purpose),
I would have him sent in chains to my praetorian prefects: 1 for,
only to remand him back to a punishment which he has con-
tumaciously eluded will by no means be a sufficient punishment.

LXVI

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

WHEN I cited the judges, Sir, to attend me at a sessions 2 which I
was going to hold, Flavius Archippus claimed the privilege of

1 These, in the original institution as settled by Augustus, were only commanders
of his body-guards; but in the later times of the Roman empire they were next in
authority under the emperor, to whom they seem to have acted as a sort of prime
ministers. M.

2 The provinces were divided into a kind of circuits called conventus, whither the
proconsuls used to go in order to administer justice. The judges here mentioned
must not be understood to mean the same sort of judicial officers as with us; they
rather answered to our juries. M.

LETTERS 389

being excused as exercising the profession of a philosopher. 3 It
was alleged by some who were present that he ought not only to
be excused from that office, but even struck out of the roll of judges,
and remanded back to the punishment from which he had escaped
by breaking his chains. At the same time a sentence of the pro-
consul Velius Paullus was read, by which it appeared that Archippus
had been condemned to the mines for forgery. He had nothing
to produce in proof of this sentence having ever been reversed.
He alleged, however, in favour of his restitution, a petition which
he presented to Domitian, together with a letter from that prince,
and a decree of the Prusensians in his honour. To these he sub-
joined a letter which he had received from you; as also an edict
and a letter of your august father confirming the grants which had
been made to him by Domitian. For these reasons, notwithstanding
crimes of so atrocious a nature were laid to his charge, I did not
think proper to determine anything concerning him, without first
consulting with you, as it is an affair which seems to merit your
particular decision. I have transmitted to you, with this letter, the
several allegations on both sides.

DOMITIAN'S LETTER TO TERENTIUS MAXIMUS

"Flavius Archippus, the philosopher, has prevailed with me to
give an order that six hundred thousand sesterces 4 be laid out in the
purchase of an estate for the support of him and his family, in
the neighbourhood of Prusias, 5 his native country. Let this be ac-
cordingly done; and place that sum to the account of my bene-
factions."

FROM THE SAME TO L. APPIUS MAXIMUS

"I recommend, my dear Maximus, to your protection that worthy
philosopher, Archippus; a person whose moral conduct is agree-

3 By the imperial constitutions the philosophers were exempted from all public
functions. Catanzus. M.

4 About $24,000.

5 Geographers are not agreed where to place this city; Cellarius conjectures it may
possibly be the same with Prusa ad Olympum, Prusa at the foot of Mount Olympus
in Mysia. A/.

390 PLINY

able to the principles of the philosophy he professes; and I would
have you pay entire regard to whatever he shall reasonably request."

THE EDICT OF THE EMPEROR NERVA

"There are some points, no doubt, Quirites, concerning which the
happy tenor of my government is a sufficient indication of my
sentiments; and a good prince need not give an express declaration
in matters wherein his intention cannot but be clearly understood.
Every citizen in the empire will bear me witness that I gave up
my private repose to the security of the public, and in order that I
might have the pleasure of dispensing new bounties of my own,
as also of confirming those which had been granted by predecessors.
But lest the memory of him 6 who conferred these grants, or the
diffidence of those who received them, should occasion any inter-
ruption to the public joy, I thought it as necessary as it is agreeable to
me to obviate these suspicions by assuring them of my indulgence. I
do not wish any man who has obtained a private or a public
privilege from one of the former emperors to imagine he is to
be deprived of such a privilege, merely that he may owe the restora-
tion of it to me; nor need any who have received the gratifications
of imperial favour petition me to have them confirmed. Rather
let them leave me at leisure for conferring new grants, under the
assurance that I am only to be solicited for those bounties which
have not already been obtained, and which the happier fortune of
the empire has put it in my power to bestow."

FROM THE SAME TO TULLIUS JUSTUS

"Since I have publicly decreed that all acts begun and accomplished
in former reigns should be confirmed, the letters of Domitian must
remain valid."

LXVII
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

FLAVIUS ARCHIPPUS has conjured me, by all my vows for your
prosperity, and by your immortal glory, that I would transmit to

6 Domitian.

LETTERS 391

you the memorial which he presented to me. I could not refuse a
request couched in such terms; however, I acquainted the prosecutrix
with this my intention, from whom I have also received a memorial
on her part. I have annexed them both to this letter; that by hearing,
as it were, each party, you may the better be enabled to decide.

LXVIII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

IT is possible that Domitian might have been ignorant of the
circumstances in which Archippus was when he wrote the letter
so much to that philosopher's credit. However, it is more agreeable
to my disposition to suppose that prince designed he should be
restored to his former situation; especially since he so often had
the honour of a statue decreed to him by those who could not be
ignorant of the sentence pronounced against him by the proconsul
Paullus. But I do not mean to intimate, my dear Pliny, that if any
new charge should be brought against him, you should be the
less disposed to hear his accusers. I have examined the memorial
of his prosecutrix, Furia Prima, as well as that of Archippus himself,
which you sent with your last letter.

LXIX
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE apprehensions you express, Sir, that the lake will be in
danger of being entirely drained if a communication should be
opened between that and the sea, by means of the river, are agreeable
to that prudence and forethought you so eminently possess; but
I think I have found a method to obviate that inconvenience. A
channel may be cut from the lake up to the river so as not quite
to join them, leaving just a narrow strip of land between, preserving
the lake; by this means it will not only be kept quite separate from
the river, but all the same purposes will be answered as if they
were united: for it will be extremely easy to convey over that little
intervening ridge whatever goods shall be brought down by the
canal. This is a scheme which may be pursued, if it should be found

39 2 PLINY

necessary; but I hope there will be no occasion to have recourse
to it. For, in the first place, the lake itself is pretty deep; and, in
the next, by damming up the river which runs from it on the
opposite side and turning its course as we shall find expedient, the
same quantity of water may be retained. Besides, there are several
brooks near the place where it is proposed the channel shall be
cut which, if skilfully collected, will supply the lake with water in
proportion to what it shall discharge. But if you should rather
approve of the channel's being extended farther and cut narrower,
and so conveyed directly into the sea, without running into the
river, the reflux of the tide will return whatever it receives from
the lake. After all, if the nature of the place should not admit of
any of these schemes, the course of the water may be checked
by sluices. These, however, and many other particulars, will be
more skilfully examined into by the engineer, whom, indeed, Sir,
you ought to send, according to your promise, for it is an enterprise
well worthy of your attention and magnificence. In the meanwhile,
I have written to the illustrious Calpurnius Macer, in pursuance of
your orders, to send me the most skilful engineer to be had.

LXX

TRAJAN TO PLINY

IT is evident, my dearest Secundus, that neither your prudence
nor your care has been wanting in this affair of the lake, since, in
order to render it of more general benefit, you have provided so
many expedients against the danger of its being drained. I leave
it to your own choice to pursue whichever of the schemes shall be
thought most proper. Calpurnius Macer will furnish you, no doubt,
with an engineer, as artificers of that kind are not wanting in his
province.

LXXI

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

A VERY considerable question, Sir, in which the whole province is
interested, has been lately started, concerning the state 1 and main-

1 That is, whether they should be considered in a state of freedom or slavery. .A/.

LETTERS 393

tenance of deserted children. 2 I have examined the constitutions of
former princes upon this head, but not finding anything in them
relating, either in general or particular, to the Bithynians, I thought
it necessary to apply to you for your directions: for in a point
which seems to require the special interposition of your authority,
I could not content myself with following precedents. An edict of
the emperor Augustus (as pretended) was read to me, concerning
one Annia; as also a letter from Vespasian to the Lacedaemonians,
and another from Titus to the same, with one likewise from him
to the Achaeans, also some letters from Domitian, directed to the
proconsuls Avidius Nigrinus and Armenius Brocchus, together with
one from that prince to the Lacedaemonians: but I have not trans-
mitted them to you, as they were not correct (and some of them
too of doubtful authenticity), and also because I imagine the true
copies are preserved in your archives.

LXXII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

THE question concerning children who were exposed by their
parents, and afterwards preserved by others, and educated in a state
of servitude, though born free, has been frequently discussed; but
I do not find in the constitutions of the princes my predecessors
any general regulation upon this head, extending to all the provinces.
There are, indeed, some rescripts of Domitian to Avidius Nigrinus
and Armenius Brocchus, which ought to be observed; but Bithynia
is not comprehended in the provinces therein mentioned. I am of
opinion, therefore, that the claims of those who assert their right
of freedom upon this footing should be allowed; without obliging
them to purchase their liberty by repaying the money advanced
for their maintenance. 3

2 "Parents throughout the entire ancient world had the right to expose their children
and leave them to their fate. Hence would sometimes arise the question whether
such a child, if found and brought up by another, was entitled to his freedom,
whether also the person thus adopting him must grant him his freedom without
repayment for the cost of maintenance." Church and Brodribb.

3 "This decision of Trajan, the effect of which would be that persons would be
slow to adopt an abandoned child which, when brought up, its unnatural parents
could claim back without any compensation for its nurture, seems harsh, and we
find that it was disregarded by the later emperors in their legal decisions on the
subject." Church and Brodribb.

394 PLINY

LXXIII

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

HAVING been petitioned by some persons to grant them the
liberty (agreeably to the practice of former proconsuls) of removing
the relics of their deceased relations, upon the suggestion that either
their monuments were decayed by age or ruined by the inundations
of the river, or for other reasons of the same kind, I thought proper,
Sir, knowing that in cases of this nature it is usual at Rome to
apply to the college of priests, to consult you, who are the sovereign
of that sacred order, as to how you would have me act in this case.

LXXIV
TRAJAN TO PLINY

IT will be a hardship upon the provincials to oblige them to
address themselves to the college of priests whenever they may
have just reasons for removing the ashes of their ancestors. In this
case, therefore, it will be better you should follow the example of
the governors your predecessors, and grant or deny them this liberty
as you shall see reasonable.

LXXV
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I HAVE enquired, Sir, at Prusa, for a proper place on which to
erect the bath you were pleased to allow that city to build, and
I have found one to my satisfaction. It is upon the site where
formerly, I am told, stood a very beautiful mansion, but which is
now entirely fallen into ruins. By fixing upon that spot, we shall
gain the advantage of ornamenting the city in a part which at
present is exceedingly deformed, and enlarging it at the same time
without removing any of the buildings; only restoring one which
is fallen to decay. There are some circumstances attending this
structure of which it is proper I should inform you. Claudius
Polyamus bequeathed it to the emperor Claudius Caesar, with

LETTERS 395

directions that a temple should be erected to that prince in a
colonnade-court, and that the remainder of the house should be let
in apartments. The city received the rents for a considerable time;
but partly by its having been plundered, and partly by its being
neglected, the whole house, colonnade-court and all, is entirely gone
to ruin, and there is now scarcely anything remaining of it but
the ground upon which it stood. If you shall think proper, Sir,
either to give or sell this spot of ground to the city, as it lies so
conveniently for their purpose, they will receive it as a most par-
ticular favour. I intend, with your permission, to place the bath in
the vacant area, and to extend a range of porticoes with seats in that
part where the former edifice stood. This new erection I purpose
dedicating to you, by whose bounty it will rise with all the elegance
and magnificence worthy of your glorious name. I have sent you
a copy of the will, by which, though it is inaccurate, you will see
that Polyamus left several articles of ornament for the embellishment
of this house; but these also are lost with all the rest: I will, however,
make the strictest enquiry after them that I am able.

LXXVI

TRAJAN TO PLINY

I HAVE no objection to the Prusenses making use of the ruined
court and house, which you say are untenanted, for the erection
of their bath. But it is not sufficiently clear by your letter whether
the temple in the centre of the colonnade-court was actually dedicated
to Claudius or not; for if it were, it is still consecrated ground. 1

I HAVE been pressed by some persons to take upon myself the
enquiry of causes relating to claims of freedom by birthright, agree-
ably to a rescript of Domitian's to Minucius Rufus, and the practice
of former proconsuls. But upon casting my eye on the decree of
the senate concerning cases of this nature, I find it only mentions

1 And consequently by the Roman laws unapplicable to any other purpose. M.

PLINY

the proconsular provinces. 1 I have therefore, Sir, deferred interfering
in this affair, till I shall receive your instructions as to how you would
have me proceed.

LXXVIII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

IF you will send me the decree of the senate, which occasioned
your doubt, I shall be able to judge whether it is proper you should
take upon yourself the enquiry of causes relating to claims of free-
dom by birthright.

LXXIX
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

JULIUS LARGUS, of Pontus 2 (a person whom I never saw, nor indeed
ever heard his name till lately), in confidence, Sir, of your distin-
guishing judgment in my favour, has entrusted me with the execu-
tion of the last instance of his loyalty towards you. He has left me, by
his will, his estate upon trust, in the first place to receive out of
it fifty thousand sesterces 3 for my own use, and to apply the re-
mainder for the benefit of the cities of Heraclea and Tios, 4 either by
erecting some public edifice dedicated to your honour or instituting
athletic games, according as I shall judge proper. These games are
to be celebrated every five years, and to be called Trajan's games.
My principal reason for acquainting you with this bequest is that
I may receive your directions which of the respective alternatives
to choose.

1 The Roman provinces in the times of the emperors were of two sorts: those which
were distinguished by the name of the provincix Caesaris and the provincix senatus.
The provincice Ccesans, or imperial provinces, were such as the emperor, for reasons
of policy, reserved to his own immediate administration, or of those whom he thought
proper to appoint: the provincice senatus, or proconsular provinces, were such as he
left to the government of proconsuls or praetors, chosen in the ordinary method of
election. (Vid. Suet, in Aug. c. 47.) Of the former kind was Bithynia, at the time
when our author presided there. (Vid. Masson, Vit. Plin. p. 133.) A/.

2 A province in Asia, bordering upon the Black Sea, and by some ancient geographers
considered as one province with Bithynia. M.

3 About $2,000. M.

4 Cities of Pontus near the Euxine or Black Sea. M.

LETTERS 397

LXXX

TRAJAN TO PLINY

BY the prudent choice Julius Largus has made of a trustee, one
would imagine he had known you perfectly well. You will consider
then what will most tend to perpetuate his memory, under the
circumstances of the respective cities, and make your option ac-
cordingly.

LXXXI

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

You acted agreeably, Sir, to your usual prudence and foresight in
ordering the illustrious Calpurnius Macer to send a legionary cen-
turion to Byzantium: you will consider whether the city of Juliopolis 1
does not deserve the same regard, which, though it is extremely
small, sustains very great burthens, and is so much the more exposed
to injuries as it is less capable of resisting them. Whatever benefits
you shall confer upon that city will in effect be advantageous to
the whole country; for it is situated at the entrance of Bithynia,
and is the town through which all who travel into this province
generally pass.

LXXXII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

THE circumstances of the city of Byzantium are such, by the great
confluence of strangers to it, that I held it incumbent upon me,
and consistent with the customs of former reigns, to send thither
a legionary centurion's guard to preserve the privileges of that state.
But if we should distinguish the city of Juliopolis in the same way, it
will be introducing a precedent for many others, whose claim to that
favour will rise in proportion to their want of strength. I have
so much confidence, however, in your administration as to believe

1 Gordium, the old capital of Phrygia. It afterwards, in the reign of the emperor
Augustus, received the name of Juliopolis. (See Smith's Classical Diet.)

PLINY

you will omit no method of protecting them from injuries. If any
persons shall act contrary to the discipline I have enjoined, let
them be instantly corrected; or if they happen to be soldiers, and
their crimes should be too enormous for immediate chastisement, I
would have them sent to their officers, with an account of the particu-
lar misdemeanour you shall find they have been guilty of; but if the
delinquents should be on their way to Rome, inform me by letter.

LXXXIII

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

BY a law of Pompey's 1 concerning the Bithynians, it is enacted,
Sir, that no person shall be a magistrate, or be chosen into the
senate, under the age of thirty. By the same law it is declared that
those who have exercised the office of magistrate are qualified to
be members of the senate. Subsequent to this law, the emperor
Augustus published an edict, by which it was ordained that persons
of the age of twenty-two should be capable of being magistrates.
The question, therefore, is whether those who have exercised the
functions of a magistrate before the age of thirty may be legally
chosen into the senate by the censors? 2 And if so, whether, by the
same kind of construction, they may be elected senators, at the
age which entitles them to be magistrates, though they should not
actually have borne any office? A custom which, it seems, has
hitherto been observed, and is said to be expedient, as it is rather
better that persons of noble birth should be admitted into the senate
than those of plebeian rank. The censors elect having desired my
sentiments upon this point, I was of opinion that both by the law
of Pompey and the edict of Augustus those who had exercised
the magistracy before the age of thirty might be chosen into the
senate; and for this reason, because the edict allows the office of
magistrate to be undertaken before thirty; and the law declares

1 Pompey the Great, having subdued Mithridates, and by that means greatly enlarged
the Roman empire, passed several laws relating to the newly conquered provinces,
and, among others, that which is here mentioned. M.

2 The right of electing senators did not originally belong to the censors, who were
only, as Cicero somewhere calls them, guardians of the discipline and manners of the
city; but in process of time they engrossed the whole privilege of conferring that
honour. M.

LETTERS 399

that whoever has been a magistrate should be eligible for the
senate. But with respect to those who never discharged any office
in the state, though they were of the age required for that purpose,
I had some doubt: and therefore, Sir, I apply to you for your
directions. I have subjoined to this letter the heads of the law,
together with the edict of Augustus.

LXXXIV
TRAJAN TO PLINY

I AGREE with you, my dearest Secundus, in your construction,
and am of opinion that the law of Pompey is so far repealed by
the edict of the emperor Augustus that those persons who are not
less than twenty-two years of age may execute the office of magis-
trates, and, when they have, may be received into the senate of their
respective cities. But I think that they who are under thirty years
of age, and have not discharged the function of a magistrate, can-
not, upon pretence that in point of years they were competent to
the office, legally be elected into the senate of their several com-
munities.

LXXXV
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

WHILST I was despatching some public affairs, Sir, at my apart-
ments in Prusa, at the foot of Olympus, with the intention of leaving
that city the same day, the magistrate Asclepiades informed me
that Eumolpus had appealed to me from a motion which Coc-
ceianus Dion made in their senate. Dion, it seems, having been
appointed supervisor of a public building, desired that it might be
assigned 1 to the city in form. Eumolpus, who was counsel for
Flavius Archippus, insisted that Dion should first be required to
deliver in his accounts relating to this work, before it was assigned
to the corporation; suggesting that he had not acted in the manner
he ought. He added, at the same time, that in this building, in

1 This, probably, was some act whereby the city was to ratify and confirm the pro*
ceedings of Dion under the commission assigned to him.

400 PLINY

which your statue is erected, the bodies of Dion's wife and son
are entombed, 2 and urged me to hear this cause in the public court
of judicature. Upon my at once assenting to his request, and
deferring my journey for that purpose, he desired a longer day in
order to prepare matters for hearing, and that I would try this
cause in some other city. I appointed the city of Nicea; where,
when I had taken my seat, the same Eumolpus, pretending not to
be yet sufficiently instructed, moved that the trial might be again
put off: Dion, on the contrary, insisted it should be heard. They
debated this point very fully on both sides, and entered a little into
the merits of the cause; when, being of opinion that it was reason-
able it should be adjourned, and thinking it proper to consult with
you in an affair which was of consequence in point of precedent, I
directed them to exhibit the articles of their respective allegations in
writing; for I was desirous you should judge from their own repre-
sentations of the state of the question between them. Dion promised
to comply with this direction, and Eumolpus also assured me he
would draw up a memorial of what he had to allege on the part
of the community. But he added that, being only concerned as
advocate on behalf of Archippus, whose instructions he had laid
before me, he had no charge to bring with respect to the sepulchres.
Archippus, however, for whom Eumolpus was counsel here, as at
Prusa, assured me he would himself present a charge in form upon
this head. But neither Eumolpus nor Archippus (though I have
waited several days for that purpose) have yet performed their
engagement: Dion indeed has; and I have annexed his memorial to
this letter. I have inspected the buildings in question, where I find
your statue is placed in a library; and as to the edifice in which the
bodies of Dion's wife and son are said to be deposited, it stands in
the middle of a court, which is enclosed with a colonnade. Deign,
therefore, I entreat you, Sir, to direct my judgment in the determina-
tion of this cause above all others, as it is a point to which the

2 It was a notion which generally prevailed with the ancients, in the Jewish as wel'
as heathen world, that there was a pollution in the contact of dead bodies, and this
they extended to the very house in which the corpse lay, and even to the uncovered
vessels that stood in the same room. (Vid. Pot. Antiq. v. ii. 181.) From some suck
opinion as this it is probable that the circumstance here mentioned, of placing Trajan's
statue where these bodies were deposited, was esteemed as a mark of disrespect to
his person.

LETTERS 4OI

public is greatly attentive, and necessarily so, since the fact is not
only acknowledged, but countenanced by many precedents.

LXXXVI
TRAJAN TO PLINY

You well know, my dearest Secundus, that it is my standing
maxim not to create an awe of my person by severe and rigorous
measures, and by construing every slight offence into an act of
treason; you had no reason, therefore, to hesitate a moment upon
the point concerning which you thought proper to consult me.
Without entering, therefore, into the merits of that question (to
which I would by no means give any attention, though there were
ever so many instances of the same kind), I recommend to your
care the examination of Dion's accounts relating to the public works
which he has finished; as it is a case in which the interest of the
city is concerned, and as Dion neither ought nor, it seems, does
refuse to submit to the examination.

LXXXVII
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE Niceans having, in the name of their community, conjured
me, Sir, by all my hopes and wishes for your prosperity and im-
mortal glory (an adjuration which is and ought to be most sacred
to me), to present to you their petition, I did not think myself at
liberty to refuse them: I have therefore annexed it to this letter.

LXXXVIII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

THE Niceans, I find, claim a right, by an edict of Augustus, to
the estate of every citizen who dies intestate. You will therefore
summon the several parties interested in this question, and, examin-
ing these pretensions, with the assistance of the procurators Virdius
Gemellinus, and Epimachus, my freedman (having duly weighed
every argument that shall be alleged against the claim), determine
as shall appear most equitable.

PLINY

LXXXIX
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

MAY this and many succeeding birthdays be attended, Sir, with
the highest felicity to you; and may you, in the midst of an un-
interrupted course of health and prosperity, be still adding to the
increase of that immortal glory which your virtues justly merit!

XC

TRAJAN TO PLINY

YOUR wishes, my dearest Secundus, for my enjoyment of many
happy birthdays amidst the glory and prosperity of the republic
were extremely agreeable to me.

XCI

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE inhabitants of Sinope 1 are ill supplied, Sir, with water, which,
however, may be brought thither from about sixteen miles' distance
in great plenty and perfection. The ground, indeed, near the source
of this spring is, for rather over a mile, of a very suspicious and
marshy nature; but I have directed an examination to be made
(which will be effected at a small expense) whether it is sufficiently
firm to support any superstructure. I have taken care to provide a
sufficient fund for this purpose, if you should approve, Sir, of a
work so conducive to the health and enjoyment of this colony,
greatly distressed by a scarcity of water.

XCII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

I WOULD have you proceed, my dearest Secundus, in carefully
examining whether the ground you suspect is firm enough to sup-
port an aqueduct. For I have no manner of doubt that the Sinopian

1 A thriving Greek colony in the territory of Sinopis, on the Euxine.

LETTERS 403

colony ought to be supplied with water; provided their finances
will bear the expense of a work so conducive to their health and
pleasure.

XCIII
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE free and confederate city of the Amiseni 1 enjoys, by your
indulgence, the privilege of its own laws. A memorial being pre-
sented to me there, concerning a charitable institution, 2 I have sub-
joined it to this letter, that you may consider, Sir, whether, and
how far, this society ought to be licensed or prohibited.

XCIV
TRAJAN TO PLINY

IF the petition of the Amiseni which you have transmitted to me,
concerning the establishment of a charitable society, be agreeable to
their own laws, which by the articles of alliance it is stipulated they
shall enjoy, I shall not oppose it; especially if these contributions are
employed, not for the purpose of riot and faction, but for the sup-
port of the indigent. In other cities, however, which are subject to
our laws, I would have all assemblies of this nature prohibited.

xcv

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS, Sir, is a most excellent, honourable, and
learned man. I was so much pleased with his tastes and disposition
that I have long since invited him into my family, as my constant
guest and domestic friend; and my affection for him increased the

1 A colony of Athenians in the province of Pontus. Their town, Amisus, on the
coast, was one of the residences of Mithridates.

2 Casaubon, in his observations upon Theophrastus (as cited by one of the com-
mentators), informs us that there were at Athens and other cities of Greece certain
fraternities which paid into a common chest a monthly contribution towards the
support of such of their members who had fallen into misfortunes; upon condition
that, if ever they arrived to more prosperous circumstances, they should repay into
the general fund the money so advanced. M.

404 PLINY

more I knew of him. Two reasons concur to render the privilege 1
which the law grants to those who have three children particularly
necessary to him; I mean the bounty of his friends, and the ill
success of his marriage. Those advantages, therefore, which nature
has denied to him, he hopes to obtain from your goodness, by my
intercession. I am thoroughly sensible, Sir, of the value of the
privilege I am asking; but I know, too, I am asking it from one
whose gracious compliance with all my desires I have amply ex-
perienced. How passionately I wish to do so in the present instance,
you will judge by my thus requesting it in my absence; which I
would not, had it not been a favour which I am more than ordinarily
anxious to obtain.

XCVI

TRAJAN TO PLINY

You cannot but be sensible, my dearest Secundus, how reserved I
am in granting favours of the kind you desire; having frequently
declared in the senate that I had not exceeded the number of which
I assured that illustrious order I would be contented with. I have
yielded, however, to your request, and have directed an article to be
inserted in my register, that I have conferred upon Tranquillus, on
my usual conditions, the privilege which the law grants to those
who have three children.

XCVIP

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

IT is my invariable rule, Sir, to refer to you in all matters where
I feel doubtful; for who is more capable of removing my scruples,

1 By the law for encouragement of matrimony (some account of which has already
been given in a previous note), as a penalty upon those who lived bachelors, they were
declared incapable of inheriting any legacy by will; so likewise, if, being married, they
had no children, they could not claim the full advantage of benefactions of that
kind. M.

2 This letter is esteemed as almost the only genuine monument of ecclesiastical
antiquity relating to the times immediately succeeding the Apostles, it being written
at most not above forty years after the death of St. Paul. It was preserved by the
Christians themselves as a clear and unsuspicious evidence of the purity of their
doctrines, and is frequently appealed to by the early writers of the Church against
the calumnies of their adversaries. M.

LETTERS 405

or informing my ignorance? Having never been present at any
trials concerning those who profess Christianity, I am unacquainted
not only with the nature of their crimes, or the measure of their
punishment, but how far it is proper to enter into an examination
concerning them. Whether, therefore, any difference is usually made
with respect to ages, or no distinction is to be observed between the
young and the adult; whether repentance entitles them to a pardon,
or, if a man has been once a Christian, it avails nothing to desist
from his error; whether the very profession of Christianity, un-
attended with any criminal act, or only the crimes themselves in-
herent in the profession are punishable; on all these points I am in
great doubt. In the meanwhile, the method I have observed towards
those who have been brought before me as Christians is this: I asked
them whether they were Christians; if they admitted it, I repeated
the question twice, and threatened them with punishment; if they
persisted, I ordered them to be at once punished : for I was persuaded,
whatever the nature of their opinions might be, a contumacious and
inflexible obstinacy certainly deserved correction. There were others
also brought before me possessed with the same infatuation, but
being Roman citizens, 3 I directed them to be sent to Rome. But
this crime spreading (as is usually the case) while it was actually
under prosecution, several instances of the same nature occurred.
An anonymous information was laid before me containing a charge
against several persons, who upon examination denied they were
Christians, or had ever been so. They repeated after me an invoca-
tion to the gods, and offered religious rites with wine and incense
before your statue (which for that purpose I had ordered to be
brought, together with those of the gods) , and even reviled the name
of Christ: whereas there is no forcing, it is said, those who are really
Christians into any of these compliances: I thought it proper, there-
fore, to discharge them. Some among those who were accused by a
witness in person at first confessed themselves Christians, but im-
mediately after denied it; the rest owned indeed that they had been
of that number formerly, but had now (some above three, others

3 It was one of the privileges of a Roman citizen, secured by the Sempronian law,
that he could not be capitally convicted but by the suffrage of the people; which
seems to have been still so far in force as to make it necessary to send the persons
here mentioned to Rome. M.

406 PLINY

more, and a few above twenty years ago) renounced that error. They
all worshipped your statue and the images of the gods, uttering im-
precations at the same time against the name of Christ. They
affirmed the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that they met
on a stated day before it was light, and addressed a form of prayer
to Christ, as to a divinity, binding themselves by a solemn oath, not
for the purposes of any wicked design, but never to commit any
fraud, theft, or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust
when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was
their custom to separate, and then reassemble, to eat in common a
harmless meal. From this custom, however, they desisted after the
publication of my edict, by which, according to your commands, I
forbade the meeting of any assemblies. After receiving this account,
I judged it so much the more necessary to endeavour to extort the
real truth, by putting two female slaves to the torture, who were
said to officiate 4 in their religious rites : but all I could discover was
evidence of an absurd and extravagant superstition. I deemed it
expedient, therefore, to adjourn all further proceedings, in order to
consult you. For it appears to be a matter highly deserving your
consideration, more especially as great numbers must be involved
in the danger of these prosecutions, which have already extended,
and are still likely to extend, to persons of all ranks and ages, and
even of both sexes. In fact, this contagious superstition is not con-
fined to the cities only, but has spread its infection among the neigh-
bouring villages and country. Nevertheless, it still seems possible to
restrain its progress. The temples, at least, which were once almost
deserted, begin now to be frequented; and the sacred rites, after a
long intermission, are again revived; while there is a general demand
for the victims, which till lately found very few purchasers. From
all this it is easy to conjecture what numbers might be reclaimed if
a general pardon were granted to those who shall repent of their
error.

4 These women, it is supposed, exercised the same office as Phoebe, mentioned by
St. Paul, whom he styles deaconess of the church of Cenchrea. Their business was
to tend the poor and sick, and other charitable offices; as also to assist at the ceremony
of female baptism, for the more decent performance of that rite: as Vossius observes
upon this passage. M.

LETTERS 407

XCVIII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

You have adopted the right course, my dearest Secundus, in in-
vestigating the charges against the Christians who were brought
before you. It is not possible to lay down any general rule for all
such cases. Do not go out of your way to look for them. If indeed
they should be brought before you, and the crime is proved, they
must be punished; 1 with the restriction, however, that where the
party denies he is a Christian, and shall make it evident that he is
not, by invoking our gods, let him (notwithstanding any former
suspicion) be pardoned upon his repentance. Anonymous informa-
tions ought not to be received in any sort of prosecution. It is intro-
ducing a very dangerous precedent, and is quite foreign to the spirit
of our age.

XCIX
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE elegant and beautiful city of Amastris, 2 Sir, has, among other
principal constructions, a very fine street and of considerable length,
on one entire side of which runs what is called indeed a river, but
in fact is no other than a vile common sewer, extremely offensive to
the eye, and at the same time very pestilential on account of its
noxious smell. It will be advantageous, therefore, in point of health,
as well as decency, to have it covered; which shall be done with your

1 If we impartially examine this prosecution of the Christians, we shall find it to
have been grounded on the ancient constitution of the state, and not to have pro-
ceeded from a cruel or arbitrary temper in Trajan. The Roman legislature appears to
have been early jealous of any innovation in point of public worship; and we find the
magistrates, during the old republic, frequently interposing in cases of that nature.
Valerius Maximus has collected some instances to that purpose (L. i., c. 3), and Livy
mentions it as an established principle of the earlier ages of the commonwealth, to
guard against the introduction of foreign ceremonies of religion. It was an old and
fixed maxim likewise of the Roman government not to suffer any unlicensed
assemblies of the people. From hence it seems evident that the Christians had
rendered themselves obnoxious not so much to Trajan as to the ancient and settled
laws of the state, by introducing a foreign worship, and assembling themselves
without authority. M.

2 On the coast of Paphlagonia.

408 PLINY

permission : as I will take care, on my part, that money be not want-
ing for executing so noble and necessary a work.

C

TRAJAN TO PLINY

IT is highly reasonable, my dearest Secundus, if the water which
runs through the city of Amastris is prejudicial, while uncovered, to
the health of the inhabitants, that it should be covered up. I am
well assured you will, with your usual application, take care that the
money necessary for this work shall not be wanting.

CI

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

WE have celebrated, Sir, with great joy and festivity, those votive
solemnities which were publicly proclaimed as formerly, and re-
newed them the present year, accompanied by the soldiers and
provincials, who zealously joined with us in imploring the gods
that they would be graciously pleased to preserve you and the re-
public in that state of prosperity which your many and great virtues,
particularly your piety and reverence towards them, so justly merit.

CII

TRAJAN TO PLINY

IT was agreeable to me to learn by your letter that the army and
the provincials seconded you, with the most joyful unanimity, in
those vows which you paid and renewed to the immortal gods for
my preservation and prosperity.

GUI
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

WE have celebrated, with all the warmth of that pious zeal we
justly ought, the day on which, by a most happy succession, the
protection of mankind was committed over into your hands; recom-

LETTERS 409

mending to the gods, from whom you received the empire, the object
of your public vows and congratulations.

CIV
TRAJAN TO PLINY

I WAS extremely well pleased to be informed by your letter that
you had, at the head of the soldiers and the provincials, solemnized
my accession to the empire with all due joy and zeal.

VALERIUS PAULINUS, Sir, having bequeathed to me the right of
patronage 1 over all his freedmen, except one, I entreat you to grant
the freedom of Rome to three of them. To desire you to extend this
favour to all of them would, I fear, be too unreasonable a trespass
upon your indulgence; which, in proportion as I have amply ex-
perienced, I ought to be so much the more cautious in troubling.
The persons for whom I make this request are C. Valerius Astraeus,
C. Valerius Dionysius, and C. Valerius Aper.

CVI

TRAJAN TO PLINY

You act most generously in so early soliciting in favour of those
whom Valerius Paulinus has confided to your trust. I have accord-
ingly granted the freedom of the city to such of his freedmen for
whom you requested it, and have directed the patent to be registered:
I am ready to confer the same on the rest, whenever you shall
desire me.

1 By the Papian law, which passed in the consulship of M. Papius Mutilus and
Q. Poppeas Secundus, u.c. 761, if a freedman died worth a hundred thousand
sesterces (or about $4,000 of our money), leaving only one child, his patron (that
is, the master from whom he received his liberty) was entitled to half his estate;
if he left two children, to one-third; but if more than two, then the patron was
absolutely excluded. This was afterwards altered by Justinian, Inst. 1. iii., tit. 8. .V.

410 PLINY

CVII
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

P. ATTIUS AQUILA, a centurion of the sixth equestrian cohort, re-
quested me, Sir, to transmit his petition to you, in favour of his
daughter. I thought it would be unkind to refuse him this service,
knowing, as I do, with what patience and kindness you attend to
the petitions of the soldiers.

CVIII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

I HAVE read the petition of P. Attius Aquila, centurion of the
sixth equestrian cohort, which you sent to me; and in compliance
with his request, I have conferred upon his daughter the freedom
of the city of Rome. I send you at the same time the patent, which
you will deliver to him.

CIX

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I REQUEST, Sir, your directions with respect to the recovering those
debts which are due to the cities of Bithynia and Pontus, either for
rent, or goods sold, or upon any other consideration. I find they
have a privilege, conceded to them by several proconsuls, of being
preferred to other creditors; and this custom has prevailed as if it
had been established by law. Your prudence, I imagine, will think
it necessary to enact some settled rule, by which their rights may
always be secured. For the edicts of others, how wisely soever
founded, are but feeble and temporary ordinances, unless confirmed
and sanctioned by your authority.

CX

TRAJAN TO PLINY

THE right which the cities either of Pontus or Bithynia claim
relating to the recovery of debts of whatever kind, due to their

LETTERS 411

several communities, must be determined agreeably to their re-
spective laws. Where any of these communities enjoy the privilege
of being preferred to other creditors, it must be maintained; but,
where no such privilege prevails, it is not just I should establish one,
in prejudice of private property.

CXI

% To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE solicitor to the treasury of the city of Amisus instituted a
claim, Sir, before me against Julius Piso of about forty thousand
denarii, 1 presented to him by the public above twenty years ago,
with the consent of the general council and assembly of the city:
and he founded his demand upon certain of your edicts, by which
donations of this kind are prohibited. Piso, on the other hand,
asserted that he had conferred large sums of money upon the com-
munity, and indeed had thereby expended almost the whole of his
estate. He insisted upon the length of time which had intervened
since this donation, and hoped that he should not be compelled, to
the ruin of the remainder of his fortunes, to refund a present which
had been granted him long since, in return for many good offices
he had done the city. For this reason, Sir, I thought it necessary to
suspend giving any judgment in this cause till I shall receive your
directions.

CXII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

THOUGH by my edicts I have ordained that no largesses shall be
given out of the public money, yet, that numberless private persons
may not be disturbed in the secure possession of their fortunes,
those donations which have been made long since ought not to be
called in question or revoked. We will not, therefore, enquire into
anything that has been transacted in this affair so long ago as twenty
years; for I would be no less attentive to secure the repose of every
private man than to preserve the treasure of every public community.

1 About $7,000.

412 PLINY

CXIII
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE Pompeian law, Sir, which is observed in Pontus and Bithynia,
does not direct that any money for their admission shall be paid in
by those who are elected into the senate by the censors. It has, how-
ever, been usual for such members as have been admitted into those
assemblies, in pursuance of the privilege which you were pleased to
grant to some particular cities, of receiving above their legal number,
to pay one 1 or two thousand denarii 2 on their election. Subsequent
to this, the proconsul Anicius Maximus ordained (though indeed
his edict related to some few cities only) that those who were elected
by the censors should also pay into the treasury a certain sum, which
varied in different places. It remains, therefore, for your considera-
tion whether it would not be proper to settle a certain sum for each
member who is elected into the councils to pay upon his entrance;
for it well becomes you, whose every word and action deserve to
be immortalized, to establish laws that shall endure for ever.

CXIV

TRAJAN TO PLINY

I CAN give no general directions applicable to all the cities of
Bithynia, in relation to those who are elected members of their
respective councils, whether they shall pay an honorary fee upon
their admittance or not. I think that the safest method which can
be pursued is to follow the particular laws of each city; and I also
think that the censors ought to make the sum less for those who are
chosen into the senate contrary to their inclinations than for the rest.

cxv

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE Pompeian law, Sir, allows the Bithynians to give the free-
dom of their respective cities to any person they think proper, pro-

1 About $175. 2 About $350.

LETTERS 413

vided he is not a foreigner, but native of some of the cities of this
province. The same law specifies the particular causes for which
the censors may expel any member of the senate, but makes no
mention of foreigners. Certain of the censors, therefore, have de-
sired my opinion whether they ought to expel a member if he should
happen to be a foreigner. But I thought it necessary to receive your
instructions in this case; not only because the law, though it forbids
foreigners to be admitted citizens, does not direct that a senator
shall be expelled for the same reason, but because I am informed
that in every city in the province a great number of the senators
are foreigners. If, therefore, this clause of the law, which seems to
be antiquated by a long custom to the contrary, should be enforced,
many cities, as well as private persons, must be injured by it. I have
annexed the heads of this law to my letter.

CXVI

TRAJAN TO PLINY

You might well be doubtful, my dearest Secundus, what reply to
give to the censors, who consulted you concerning their right to
elect into the senate foreign citizens, though of the same province.
The authority of the law on one side, and long custom prevailing
against it on the other, might justly occasion you to hesitate. The
proper mean to observe in this case will be to make no change in
what is past, but to allow those senators who are already elected,
though contrary to law, to keep their seats, to whatever city they may
belong; in all future elections, however, to pursue the directions of
the Pompeian law: for to give it a retrospective operation would
necessarily introduce great confusion.

CXVII

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

IT is customary here upon any person taking the manly robe,
solemnizing his marriage, entering upon the office of a magistrate,
or dedicating any public work, to invite the whole senate, together
with a considerable part of the commonalty, and distribute to each

414 PLINY

of the company one or two denarii. 1 I request you to inform me
whether you think proper this ceremony should be observed, or
how far you approve of it. For myself, though I am of opinion that
upon some occasions, especially those of public festivals, this kind
of invitation may be permitted, yet, when carried so far as to draw
together a thousand persons, and sometimes more, it seems to be
going beyond a reasonable number, and has somewhat the appear-
ance of ambitious largesses.

CXVIII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

You very justly apprehend that those public invitations which
extend to an immoderate number of people, and where the dole is
distributed, not singly to a few acquaintances, but, as it were, to
whole collective bodies, may be turned to the factious purposes of
ambition. But I appointed you to your present government, fully
relying upon your prudence, and in the persuasion that you would
take proper measures for regulating the manners and settling the
peace of the province.

CXIX

To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

THE athletic victors, Sir, in the Iselastic 2 games, conceive that the
stipend you have established for the conquerors becomes due from
the day they are crowned : for it is not at all material, they say, what
time they were triumphantly conducted into their country, but when
they merited that honour. On the contrary, when I consider the
meaning of the term Iselastic, I am strongly inclined to think that
it is intended the stipend should commence from the time of their

1 The denarius = 17 cents. The sum total, then, distributed among one thousand
persons at the rate of, say, two denarii apiece would amount to about $350.

2 These games are called Iselastic from the Greek word ticreXaww, invehor,
because the victors, drawn by white horses, and wearing crowns on their heads, were
conducted with great pomp into their respective cities, which they entered through
a breach in the walls made for that purpose; intimating, as Plutarch observes, that
a city which produced such able and victorious citizens, had little occasion for the
defence of walls (Catanzus). They received also annually a certain honorary stipend
from the public. M.

LETTERS 415

public entry. They likewise petition to be allowed the treat you
give at those combats which you have converted into Iselastic,
though they were conquerors before the appointment of that in-
stitution: for it is but reasonable, they assert, that they should re-
ceive the reward in this instance, as they are deprived of it at those
games which have been divested of the honour of being Iselastic,
since their victory. But I am very doubtful whether a retrospect
should be admitted in the case in question, and a reward given, to
which the claimants had no right at the time they obtained the
victory. I beg, therefore, you would be pleased to direct my judg-
ment in these points, by explaining the intention of your own bene-
factions.

cxx

TRAJAN TO PLINY

THE stipend appointed for the conqueror in the Iselastic games
ought not, I think, to commence till he makes his triumphant entry
into his city. Nor are the prizes, at those combats which I thought
proper to make Iselastic, to be extended backwards to those who
were victors before that alteration took place. With regard to the
plea which these athletic combatants urge, that they ought to receive
the Iselastic prize at those combats which have been made Iselastic
subsequent to their conquests, as they are denied it in the same case
where the games have ceased to be so, it proves nothing in their
favour; for notwithstanding any new arrangement which has been
made relating to these games, they are not called upon to return the
recompense which they received prior to such alteration.

CXXI
To THE EMPEROR TRAJAN

I HAVE hitherto never, Sir, granted an order for post-chaises to
any person, or upon any occasion, but in affairs that relate to your
administration. I find myself, however, at present under a sort of
necessity of breaking through this fixed rule. My wife having re-
ceived an account of her grandfather's death, and being desirous to

416 PLINY

wait upon her aunt with all possible expedition, I thought it would
be unkind to deny her the use of this privilege; as the grace of so
tender an office consists in the early discharge of it, and as I well
knew a journey which was founded in filial piety could not fail of
your approbation. I should think myself highly ungrateful, there-
fore, were I not to acknowledge that, among other great obligations
which I owe to your indulgence, I have this in particular, that, in
confidence of your favour, I have ventured to do, without consulting
you, what would have been too late had I waited for your consent.

CXXII
TRAJAN TO PLINY

You did me justice, my dearest Secundus, in confiding in my
affection towards you. Without doubt, if you had waited for my
consent to forward your wife in her journey by means of those
warrants which I have entrusted to your care, the use of them would
not have answered your purpose; since it was proper this visit to
her aunt should have the additional recommendation of being paid
with all possible expedition.