Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Younger (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) Read online

  The Complete Works of

  PLINY THE YOUNGER

  (61 AD–c.112 AD)

  Contents

  The Translations

  THE LETTERS

  DETAILED TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THE LETTERS

  PANEGYRICUS TRAIANI

  The Latin Texts

  LIST OF LATIN TEXTS

  The Dual Text

  DUAL LATIN AND ENGLISH TEXT

  The Biography

  INTRODUCTION TO PLINY THE YOUNGER by J. B. Firth

  © Delphi Classics 2014

  Version 1

  The Complete Works of

  GAIUS PLINIUS CAECILIUS SECUNDUS

  By Delphi Classics, 2014

  The Translations

  Como, Northern Italy. Pliny the Younger was born in Novum Comum in 61 AD. He was the nephew of Pliny the Elder, the famous natural philosopher.

  Como and Lake Como by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1834

  ‘The Younger Pliny Reproved’ by Thomas Burke, c. 1800

  THE LETTERS

  Translated by John B. Firth (Books I-V) and John Delaware Lewis (Books VI-X)

  Offering a unique testimony of Roman administrative history and everyday life in the First Century AD, Pliny the Younger’s Epistulae are a series of personal missives directed to his friends, associates and the Emperor Trajan. Especially noteworthy among the letters are two in which Pliny describes the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in August 79 AD, during which his uncle Pliny the Elder died (VI.16, VI.20) and a letter in which he asks the Emperor for instructions regarding the official policy concerning Christians (X.96). The Epistulae are usually treated as two halves: those in Books 1 to 9, which Pliny prepared for publication, and those in Book 10, all of which contain the two-way correspondence of the Emperor Trajan and Pliny, during the latter’s governorship of Bithynia-Pontus. This final book was not intended for publication and offers a rare insight into the relationship and practices between an Emperor and a trusted governor. Other major literary figures of the late First Century AD appear in the letters, including Pliny’s friends the poet Martial, the historian Tacitus and the biographer Suetonius. However, arguably the most important literary figure to appear in Pliny’s letters is his uncle, Pliny the Elder. Pliny provides details of how his uncle worked tirelessly to finish his magnum opus, the Historia Naturalis (Natural History) and his heroic endeavours during the Vesuvius eruption.

  Chronologically, it is believed that Books 1 to 3 were written between 97 and 102 AD, Books 4 to 7 were composed between 103 and 107 and Books 8 and 9 cover the years 108 and 109. The letters vividly bring to life Pliny’s gradual growth as a young noble man, including tributes to notable figures such as Marcus Valerius Martialis, Pliny’s protégé (3.21). Throughout the letters, Pliny gives advice to his friends, while giving invaluable references to the daily routines of Roman life, political support is discussed and Pliny comments on many other aspects of his society, using an established literary style. The letters giving details of Pliny’s life at his country villas are important documents in the history of garden design. They are the world’s oldest sources of the information on how gardens were used in the ancient world and the various considerations that went into their design. However, by the last two books the subject matter is more contemplative.

  Pliny’s two famous letters regarding the volcano eruption by Pompeii were written to the historian Tacitus, a close friend, who had requested from Pliny a detailed account of his uncle’s death for inclusion in his own historical work. Pliny’s attention to detail in the letters about Vesuvius is so keen that modern vulcanologists describe that type of eruption as Plinian. In these letters, he relates the first warning of the eruption and then goes on to describe his uncle’s failed attempt to study further the eruption and to save the lives of refugees, using the fleet under his command.

  Book 10 contains the correspondence between Pliny the Younger and the Emperor Trajan in its entirety, offering a unique insight into the administrative functions of a Roman province of the time, as well as the machinations of the Roman system of patronage and wider cultural traditions of Rome itself. In addition, the corruption and apathy that occurred at various levels of the provincial system can be seen clearly. The letters also contain the earliest external account of Christian worship and the Romans’ reasons for the execution of Christians (X.96). This important letter provides views that were to become the standard policy toward Christians for the rest of the pagan era. Taken together, Pliny’s letter and Trajan’s response demonstrate a fairly relaxed policy toward the Christians, who were not to be sought out, though executed if brought before a magistrate by a reputable means of accusation and they were to be given the opportunity to recant their religion. Fortunately, Trajan’s replies to Pliny’s questions and requests were also collected for publication, making the anthology even more valuable, giving posterity a telling glimpse of the personality of a Roman Emperor.

  A Victorian engraving of Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23 – August 25, AD 79), Pliny the Elder, who was a naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire.

  Reconstruction of the Roman garden of the House of the Vettii in Pompeii

  CONTENTS

  BOOK I.

  BOOK II.

  BOOK III.

  BOOK IV.

  BOOK V.

  BOOK VI.

  BOOK VII.

  BOOK VIII.

  BOOK IX.

  BOOK X. CORRESPONDENCE WITH TRAJAN.

  Detailed table of contents listing each letter

  ‘Eruption of Vesuvius’ by I. C. Dahl, 1826

  ‘An Eruption of Vesuvius Seen from Portici’ by Joseph Wright, c. 1774

  Plaster casts of the casualties of the pumice-fall, whose remains vanished leaving cavities in the pumice

  Pompeii, with Vesuvius in the distance

  BOOK I.

  Detailed table of contents listing each letter

  I. — TO SEPTICIUS.

  You have constantly urged me to collect and publish the more highly finished of the letters that I may have written. I have made such a collection, but without preserving the order in which they were composed, as I was not writing a historical narrative. So I have taken them as they happened to come to hand. I can only hope that you will not have cause to regret the advice you gave, and that I shall not repent having followed it; for I shall set to work to recover such letters as have up to now been tossed on one side, and I shall not keep back any that I may write in the future. Farewell.

  Detailed table of contents listing each letter

  II. — TO ARRIANUS.

  As I see that your arrival is likely to be later than I expected, I forward you the speech which I promised in an earlier letter. I beg that you will read and revise it as you have done with other compositions of mine, because I think none of my previous works is written in quite the same style. I have tried to imitate, at least in manner and turns of phrase, your old favourite, Demosthenes, and Calvus, to whom I have recently taken a great fancy; for to catch the fire and power of such acknowledged stylists is only given to the heaven-inspired few. I hope you will not think me conceited if I say that the subject- matter was not unworthy of such imitation, for throughout the whole argument I found something that kept rousing me from my sleepy and confirmed indolence, that is to say, as far as a person of my temperament can be roused. Not that I abjured altogether the pigments of our master Cicero; when an opportunity arose for a pleasant littl
e excursion from the main path of my argument I availed myself of it, as my object was to be terse without being unnecessarily dry. Nor must you think that I am apologising for these few passages. For just to make your eye for faults the keener, I will confess that both my friends here and myself have no fear of publishing the speech, if you will but set your mark of approval against the passages that possibly show my folly. I must publish something, and I only hope that the best thing for the purpose may be this volume which is ready finished. That is the prayer of a lazy man, is it not? but there are several reasons why I must publish, and the strongest is that the various copies I have lent out are said to still find readers, though by this time they have lost the charm of novelty. Of course, it may be that the booksellers say this to flatter me. Well, let them flatter, so long as fibs of this kind encourage me to study the harder. Farewell.

  Detailed table of contents listing each letter

  III. — TO CANINIUS RUFUS.

  How is Comum looking, your darling spot and mine? And that most charming villa of yours, what of it, and its portico where it is always spring, its shady clumps of plane trees, its fresh crystal canal, and the lake below that gives such a charming view? How is the exercise ground, so soft yet firm to the foot; how goes the bath that gets the sun’s rays so plentifully as he journeys round it? What too of the big banqueting halls and the little rooms just for a few, and the retiring rooms for night and day? Have they full possession of you, and do they share your company in turn? or are you, as usual, continually being called away to attend to private family business? You are indeed a lucky man if you can spend all your leisure there; if you cannot, your case is that of most of us. But really it is time that you passed on your unimportant and petty duties for others to look after, and buried yourself among your books in that secluded yet beautiful retreat. Make this at once the business and the leisure of your life, your occupation and your rest; let your waking hours be spent among your books, and your hours of sleep as well. Mould something, hammer out something that shall be known as yours for all time. Your other property will find a succession of heirs when you are gone; what I speak of will continue yours for ever — if once it begins to be. I know the capacity and inventive wit that I am spurring on. You have only to think of yourself as the able man others will think you when you have realised your ability. Farewell.

  Detailed table of contents listing each letter

  IV. — TO POMPEIA CELERINA.

  What treasures you have in your villas at Ocriculum, at Narnia, at Carsola and Perusia! Even a bathing place at Narnia! My letters — for now there is no need for you to write — will have shown you how pleased I am, or rather the short letter will which I wrote long ago. The fact is, that some of my own property is scarcely so completely mine as is some of yours; the only difference being that I get more thoroughly and attentively looked after by your servants than I do by my own. You will very likely find the same thing yourself when you come to stay in one of my villas. I hope you will, in the first place that you may get as much pleasure out of what belongs to me as I have from what belongs to you, and in the second that my people may be roused a little to a sense of their duties. I find them rather remiss in their behaviour and almost careless. But that is their way; if they have a considerate master, their fear of him grows less and less as they get to know him, while a new face sharpens their attention and they study to gain their master’s good opinion, not by looking after his wants but those of his guests. Farewell.

  Detailed table of contents listing each letter

  V. — TO VOCONIUS ROMANUS.

  Did you ever see a man more abject and fawning than Marcus Regulus has been since the death of Domitian? His misdeeds were better concealed during that prince’s reign, but they were every bit as bad as they were in the time of Nero. He began to be afraid that I was angry with him and he was not mistaken, for I certainly was annoyed. After doing what he could to help those who were compassing the ruin of Rusticus Arulenus, he had openly exulted at his death, and went so far as to publicly read and then publish a pamphlet in which he violently attacks Rusticus and even calls him “the Stoics’ ape,” adding that “he is marked with the brand of Vitellius.” You recognise, of course, the Regulian style! He tears to pieces Herennius Senecio so savagely that Metius Carus said to him, “What have you to do with my dead men? Did I ever worry your Crassus or Camerinus?” — these being some of Regulus’s victims in the days of Nero. Regulus thought I bore him malice for this, and so he did not invite me when he read his pamphlet. Besides, he remembered that he once mortally attacked me in the Court of the Centumviri.

  I was a witness on behalf of Arionilla, the wife of Timon, at the request of Rusticus Arulenus, and Regulus was conducting the prosecution. We on our side were relying for part of the defence on a decision of Metius Modestus, an excellent man who had been banished by Domitian and was at that moment in exile. This was Regulus’s opportunity. “Tell me, Secundus,” said he, “what you think of Modestus.” You see in what peril I should have placed myself if I had answered that I thought highly of him, and how disgraceful it would have been if I had said that I thought ill of him. I fancy it must have been the gods who came to my rescue. “I will tell you what I think of him,” I said, “when the Court has to give a decision on the point.” He returned to the charge: “My question is, what do you think of Modestus?” Again I replied: “Witnesses used to be interrogated about persons in the dock, not about those who are already convicted.” A third time he asked: “Well, I won’t ask you now what you think of Modestus, but what you think of his loyalty.” “You ask me,” said I, “for my opinion. But I do not think it is in order for you to ask an opinion on what the Court has already passed judgment.” He was silenced, while I was congratulated and praised for not having smirched my reputation by giving an answer that might have been discreet but would certainly have been dishonest, and for not having entangled myself in the meshes of such a crafty question.

  Well, now the fellow is conscience-stricken, and buttonholes first Caecilius Celer and then implores Fabius Justsus to reconcile me to him. Not content with that, he makes his way in to see Spurinna, and begs and prays of him — you know what an abject coward he is when he is frightened — as follows. “Do go,” says he, “and call on Pliny in the morning — early in the morning, for my suspense is unbearable — and do what you can to remove his anger against me.” I was early awake that day, when a message came from Spurinna, “I am coming to see you.” I sent back word, “I will come and see you.” We met at the portico of Livia, just as we were each of us on the way to see the other. He explained his commission from Regulus and added his own entreaties, but did not press the point too strongly, as became a worthy gentleman asking a favour for a worthless acquaintance. This was my answer: “Well, you must see for yourself what message you think best to take back to Regulus; I should not like you to be under any misapprehension. I am waiting till Mauricus returns” — he had not yet returned from exile- -”and so I cannot give you an answer either way, for I shall do just what he thinks best. It is he who is principally interested in this matter, I am only secondarily concerned.” A few days afterwards Regulus himself met me when I was paying my respects to the new praetor. He followed me thither and asked for a private conversation. He said he was afraid that something he once said in the Court of the Centumviri rankled in my memory, when, in replying to Satrius Rufus and myself, he remarked, “Satrius Rufus, who is quite content with the eloquence of our days, and does not seek to rival Cicero.” I told him that as I had his own confession for it I could now see that the remark was a spiteful one, but that it was quite possible to put a complimentary construction upon it. “For,” said I, “I do try to rival Cicero, and I am not content with the eloquence of our own time. I think it is very stupid not to take as models the very best masters. But how is it that you remember this case and forget the other one in which you asked me what I thought of the loyalty of Metius Modestus?” As you know, he is alway
s pale, but he grew perceptibly paler at this thrust. Then he stammered out, “I put the question not to damage you but Modestus.” Observe the man’s malignant nature who does not mind acknowledging that he wished to do an injury to an exile. Then he went on to make this fine excuse; “He wrote in a letter which was read aloud in Domitian’s presence, ‘Regulus is the vilest creature that walks on two legs.’” Modestus never wrote a truer word.

  That practically closed the conversation. I did not wish it to go any further, so that I might not commit myself until Mauricus arrived. Moreover, I am quite aware that Regulus is a difficult bird to net. He is rich, he is a shrewd intriguer, he has no inconsiderable body of followers and a still larger circle of those who fear him, and fear is often a more powerful factor than affection. But, after all, these are bonds that may be shattered and weakened, for a bad man’s influence is as little to be relied upon as is the man himself. Moreover, let me repeat that I am waiting for Mauricus. He is a man of sound judgment and sagacity, which he has learned by experience, and he can gauge what is likely to happen in the future from what has occurred in the past. I shall be guided by him, and either strike a blow or put by my weapons just as he thinks best. I have written you this letter because it is only right, considering our regard for one another, that you should be acquainted not only with what I have said and done, but also with my plans for the future. Farewell.