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

  Detailed table of contents listing each letter

  XX. — TO CALVISIUS.

  Get ready your penny and I will tell you a golden story, nay, more than one, for the new one has reminded me of some old tales, and it does not matter with which I begin. Verania, the wife of Piso, was lying very ill — I mean the Piso who was adopted by Galba. Regulus paid her a visit. First mark the impudence of the man in coming to see the invalid, for he had been her husband’s bitter enemy and she loathed and detested him. However, that might pass if he had only called, but he actually sat down beside her on the couch and asked her on what day and at what hour she had been born. On being told he puts on a grave look, fixes his eyes hard, moves his lips, works his fingers and makes his reckoning, but says nothing. Then after keeping the poor lady on the tenter-hooks, wondering what he would say, he exclaims: “You are passing through a critical time, but you will pull through. Still, just to reassure you, I will go and consult a soothsayer with whom I have often had dealings.” He goes off at once; offers the sacrifice and swears that the appearance of the entrails corresponds with the warning of the stars. She, with all the credulity of an invalid, calls for her tablets and writes down a legacy for Regulus; subsequently she grows worse and exclaims as she dies, “What a rascal, what a lying and worse than perjured wretch, thus to have sworn falsely on the head of his son!”

  That is Regulus’s trick, and he has recourse to the scandalous device constantly, for he calls down the anger of the gods, whom he daily outrages, upon the head of his luckless son. Velleius Blaesus, the rich Consular, was stricken with the illness which carried him off, and was desirous of changing his will. Regulus, who was capable of hoping for anything from an alteration of the will because he had lately begun to haunt him on the chance of a legacy, begged and prayed of the doctors to prolong Blaesus’s life by hook or by crook. But when the will was signed he took quite a different line. He changed his tone and said to the same doctors: “How long do you intend to torture the poor man? Why do you grudge him an easy death when you cannot give him life?” Blaesus dies, and, as though he had heard every word, he leaves Regulus not a brass farthing. Two stories are quite enough. Or do you ask for a third, on the rhetoricians’ principle? Well, I have one for you. When Aurelia, a lady of great means, was about to make her will, she put on for the occasion her most handsome tunics. When Regulus came to witness the signing he said, “I beg you to leave me these.” Aurelia thought the man was joking, but he was serious and pressed the matter. Well, to cut the story short, he compelled the poor woman to open the tablets and leave to him the tunics she was wearing at the time. He watched her as she wrote, and looked to see whether she had written it rightly. Aurelia still lives, but he forced her to make that legacy as if she had been on the point of death. Yet this is the fellow who receives inheritances and legacies as though he deserved them.

  But why do I worry myself when I live in a country where villainy and rascality have long been getting not less but far more handsome rewards than modesty and virtue? Look at Regulus, for example, who, from being a pauper and without a shilling, has now become such a rich man by sheer villainy that he once told me that, when he was consulting the omens as to how soon he would be worth sixty millions of sesterces, he found double sets of entrails, which were a token that he would be worth 120 millions. So he will too, if only he goes on, as he has begun, dictating wills which are not their own to the very people who are making their wills, which is about the most disgraceful kind of forgery imaginable. Farewell.

  Detailed table of contents listing each letter

  BOOK III.

  Detailed table of contents listing each letter

  I. — TO CALVISIUS.

  I don’t think I ever spent a more delightful time than during my recent visit at Spurinna’s house; indeed, I enjoyed myself so much that, if it is my fortune to grow old, there is no one whom I should prefer to take as my model in old age, as there is nothing more methodical than that time of life. Personally, I like to see men map out their lives with the regularity of the fixed courses of the stars, and especially old men. For while one is young a little disorder and rush, so to speak, is not unbecoming; but for old folks, whose days of exertion are past and in whom personal ambition is disgraceful, a placid and well-ordered life is highly suitable. That is the principle upon which Spurinna acts most religiously; even trifles, or what would be trifles were they not of daily occurrence, he goes through in fixed order and, as it were, orbit.

  In the morning he keeps his couch; at the second hour he calls for his shoes and walks three miles, exercising mind as well as body. If he has friends with him the time is passed in conversation on the noblest of themes, otherwise a book is read aloud, and sometimes this is done even when his friends are present, but never in such a way as to bore them. Then he sits down, and there is more reading aloud or more talk for preference; afterwards he enters his carriage, taking with him either his wife, who is a pattern lady, or one of his friends, a distinction I recently enjoyed. How delightful, how charming that privacy is! What glimpses of old times one gets! What noble deeds and noble men he tells you of! What lessons you drink in! Yet at the same time it is his custom so to blend his learning with modesty that he never seems to be playing the schoolmaster. After riding seven miles he walks another mile, then he again resumes his seat or betakes himself to his room and his pen. For he composes, both in Latin and Greek, the most scholarly lyrics. They have a wonderful grace, wonderful sweetness, and wonderful humour, and the chastity of the writer enhances its charm. When he is told that the bathing hour has come — which is the ninth hour in winter and the eighth in summer — he takes a walk naked in the sun, if there is no wind. Then he plays at ball for a long spell, throwing himself heartily into the game, for it is by means of this kind of active exercise that he battles with old age. After his bath he lies down and waits a little while before taking food, listening in the meantime to the reading of some light and pleasant book. All this time his friends are at perfect liberty to imitate his example or do anything else they prefer. Then dinner is served, the table being as bright as it is modest, and the silver plain and old-fashioned; he also has some Corinthian vases in use, for which he has a taste though not a mania. The dinner is often relieved by actors of comedy, so that the pleasures of the table may have a seasoning of letters. Even in the summer the meal lasts well into the night, but no one finds it long, for it is kept up with such good humour and charm. The consequence is that, though he has passed his seventy-seventh year, his hearing and eyesight are as good as ever, his body is still active and alert, and the only symptom of his age is his wisdom.

  This is the sort of life that I have vowed and determined to forestall, and I shall enter upon it with zest as soon as my age justifies me in beating a retreat. Meanwhile, I am distracted with a thousand things to attend to, and my only solace therein is the example of Spurinna again, for he undertook official duties, held magistracies, and governed provinces as long as it became him to do so, and earned his present leisure by abundant toil. That is why I set myself the same race to run and the same goal to attain, and I now register the vow and place it in your hands, so that, if ever you see me being carried beyond the mark, you may bring me to book, quote this letter of mine against me and order me to take my ease, so soon as I shall have made it impossible for people to charge me with laziness. Farewell.

  Detailed table of contents listing each letter

  II. — TO MAXIMUS.

  I think I am justified in asking you to grant to one of my friends a favour which I should certainly have offered to friends of yours, had I the same opportunity for conferring them as you have. Arrianus Maturus is the leading man in Altinum; and when I say that, I mean not that he is the richest man there — though he possesses considerable property — but I refer to his character, to his chastity, justice, weight, and wisdom. I turn to him in business for advice, and for criticism in literary matters, for he is wonderfully loyal, straightforward,
and shrewd. He has the same regard for me as you have, and I cannot conceive a more ardent affection than that. He is by no means an ambitious man, and for that reason, though he might easily have attained the highest rank in the state, he has been content to remain in the equestrian order. Yet I feel that I must do something to add to his honours and give him some token of my regard. And so I am very anxious to heap some dignity upon him, though he does not expect it, knows nothing about it, and perhaps even would rather I did not — but it must be a real distinction and one that involves no troublesome responsibilities. So I ask you to confer upon him such a favour at your earliest opportunity, and I shall be profoundly obliged to you. And he will be also, for though he does not run after honours, he welcomes them as thankfully as if his heart were set upon them. Farewell.

  Detailed table of contents listing each letter

  III. — TO CORELLIA HISPULLA.

  I know not whether I regarded your father, who was a man of consummate judgment and rectitude of life, with greater love or reverence, and as I have a very special regard for you for his sake and also for your own, I feel bound to desire and even to do all that lies in my power to help your son to turn out like his grandfather. For choice, I should prefer him to be like his grandfather on his mother’s side, though his paternal grandfather was also a man of distinction and eminence, and his father and his uncle won conspicuous laurels. I feel sure that the only way to secure his growing up to be like them in all their good qualities is for him to drink deeply of the honourable arts, and the choice of a teacher from whom he may learn them is a matter of the highest importance. So far, his tender years have naturally kept him close by your side; he has had tutors at home, where there is little or no chance of his going wrong. But now his studies must take him out of doors, and we must look out for a Latin rhetorician with a good reputation for school discipline, for modesty, and above all, for good morals. For our young friend has been endowed, in addition to his other gifts of nature and fortune, with striking physical beauty, and at his slippery age we must find him not only a teacher but a guardian who will keep him straight.

  Well, I fancy I can recommend to you Julius Genitor. I have a regard for him, and my affection, which was based on judgment, does not blind my judgment of him. He is without faults, a man of real character, perhaps a little over-rugged and austere for this libertine age. You can learn from others what an accomplished speaker he is, for ability to speak is an open gift and is recognised at once when the power is displayed, but a man’s private life is full of deep recesses and obscure mazes. For the latter in Genitor’s case you may hold me as guarantor. From a man like him your son will hear nothing but what will be to his profit; he will learn nothing of which he had better have remained in ignorance, and Genitor will remind him, as often as you or I would, of the special obligations in his case of “noblesse oblige” and the dignity of the names he has to worthily uphold. So bid him God-speed and entrust him to a tutor who will teach him morals first and eloquence afterwards, for it is but a poor thing to learn the latter without the former. Farewell.

  Detailed table of contents listing each letter

  IV. — TO MACRINUS.

  Although my course of action was approved in general estimation and by the friends who were with me at the time, I am anxious to know what you think of it. I should have liked to have had your opinion before finally deciding, so now that the matter is over I am exceedingly keen to hear your judgment. I had run down to my Tuscan estate to lay the foundations of a public building at my own expense, after obtaining leave of absence as Praefect of the Treasury, when a deputation from the province of Baetica, who were about to lodge complaints against the governorship of Caecilius Classicus, petitioned the Senate to appoint me to conduct their case for them. My colleagues, who are the best of fellows and devoted to my interests, pleaded the engagements and duties of the office we hold, and tried to get me off and make excuses for me. The Senate passed a handsome resolution, saying that I should be allowed to champion the cause of the provincials if they succeeded in persuading me to take up the brief. Then the deputation was again introduced, when I was in my place in the Senate, and asked my assistance, appealing to my loyalty, of which they had previous experience in the action against Massa Baebius, and adducing their legal right to a patronus. The Senate responded to the appeal with the loud applause which usually precedes a decree of that body.

  Then I rose and said: “Conscript Fathers, I beg to withdraw my plea to be excused as inadequate,” and the House approved the modesty of the remark and the reason. However, I was drawn to act as I did not only by the applause of the Senate, though that had great weight with me, but by a variety of other reasons, less in themselves, but all telling in the account. I remembered that our forefathers used to voluntarily undertake the championship of individual private friends who had been wronged, and so I thought that it would be shameful for me to neglect the claims of an entire people who were my friends. Moreover, when I recollected what hazards I had run for the same people of Baetica in my earlier championship of them, I thought I had better preserve their gratitude for the old favour by granting them a new one. For it is a law of nature that people soon forget an old benefit, unless you keep on renewing it by later ones, for however often you oblige them, if you refuse them one request, they only remember the refusal. Another motive was that Classicus was dead, and so there was no fear of the odium of endangering a senator, which in these cases is usually the most serious objection. I saw, therefore, that if I undertook the case I should obtain just as much kudos as if he were alive, and yet escape all odium. In short, I reckoned that if I consented to appear a third time in a brief of this kind, I should have an easier task to excuse myself if a case turned up in which I felt I ought not to play the part of accuser. For as there is a limit to the granting of all favours, the best method of paving the way to obtain a right of refusal is by consenting to previous requests. I have now told you my reasons for acting as I did, and it is open to you to agree or dissent, but let me assure you that frank dissent will be no less agreeable to me than the sanction of your approval. Farewell.

  Detailed table of contents listing each letter

  V. — TO BAEBIUS MACER.

  I was delighted to find that you are so zealous a student of my uncle’s books that you would like to possess copies of them all, and that you ask me to give you a complete list of them. I will play the part of an index for you, and tell you, moreover, the order in which they were written, for this is a point that students are interested to know. “Throwing the Javelin from Horseback,” one volume; this was composed, with considerable ingenuity and research, when he was on active service as a cavalry lieutenant. “The Life of Pomponius Secundus,” two volumes; — Pomponius was remarkably attached to my uncle, who, so to speak, composed this book to his friend’s memory in payment of his debt of gratitude. “The German Wars,” twenty volumes; — this comprises an account of all the wars we have waged with the German races. He commenced it, while on service in Germany, in obedience to the warning of a dream, for, while he was asleep, the shade of Drusus Nero, who had won sweeping victories in that country and died there, appeared to him and kept on entrusting his fame to my uncle, beseeching him to rescue his name from ill-deserved oblivion. “The Student,” three volumes, afterwards split up into six on account of their length; — in this he showed the proper training and equipment of an orator from his cradle up. “Ambiguity in Language,” in eight volumes, was written in the last years of Nero’s reign when tyranny had made it dangerous to write any book, no matter the subject, in anything like a free and candid style. “A Continuation of the History of Aufidius Bassus,” in thirty-one books, and a “Natural History,” in thirty-seven books; — the latter is a comprehensive and learned work, covering as wide a field as Nature herself.