Pliny the Younger & Pliny the Elder · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
1.0| Pliny to his friend Tiro
1.1| As long as I was beyond the Po while you were in Picenum, I missed you less; now that I am in the city and you are still in Picenum, I miss you far more. Perhaps it is because the very places where we are usually together remind me of you more sharply; or because nothing sharpens our longing for the absent so much as nearness, and the closer you come to the hope of enjoying someone's company, the less patiently you bear being without it.
1.2| Whatever the cause, rescue me from this torment. Come, or I will go back to where I hurried away from so rashly, if only to find out whether, when you begin to be in Rome without me, you send me letters like these. Farewell.
2.0| Pliny to his friend Arrianus
2.1| Now and then in the courts I find myself looking for Marcus Regulus; I will not say missing him.
2.2| Why, then, do I look for him? He had respect for his craft: he was anxious, he went pale, he wrote his speeches out, though he could not learn them by heart. Even the fact that he painted around his right eye or his left (the right if he was going to plead for the plaintiff, the other if for the defendant), that he shifted a white patch now over one eyebrow, now over the other, that he always consulted the soothsayers about the outcome of a case: all this came from excessive superstition, but also from a great respect for his craft.
2.3| And then there were things that were most agreeable for those who spoke alongside him: he asked for unlimited time, and he rounded up people to listen. For what could be more agreeable than to speak for as long as you like with the odium of it falling on someone else, and at your ease before an audience gathered by another man, as though you had caught it there by chance?
2.4| But however that may be, Regulus did well to die; he would have done better to die sooner. For now he could certainly have lived without harm to the public, under an emperor under whom he had no power to do harm.
2.5| That is why it is permissible to look for him now and then. For since his death the habit has spread everywhere and grown strong of both granting and asking for two water-clocks, or one, and sometimes even half of one. Those who speak would rather have spoken than be speaking, and those who listen would rather be finished than give judgment. Such is the carelessness, such the laziness, such, in a word, the disrespect for our craft and for the risks involved.
2.6| Are we wiser than our forefathers, or more just than the laws themselves, which allow so many hours, so many days, so many adjournments? Those men were dull and slow beyond measure; we speak more plainly, understand more quickly, and judge more scrupulously, because we rush through cases in fewer water-clocks than it used to take days to unfold them.
2.7| O Regulus, you who obtained from everyone by canvassing what very few grant to honesty! For my part, whenever I sit as a judge (which I do even more often than I plead), I give as much water as anyone asks for, however much that is.
2.8| For I think it rash to guess how long a case will be before it has been heard, and to set a time limit on a matter whose extent you do not know, especially since the first thing a judge owes to his oath is patience, which is a great part of justice. But some things are said that are superfluous. Yes, they are; but it is better for these to be said too than for necessary things not to be said.
2.9| Besides, whether they are superfluous you cannot know until you have heard them. But it is better to talk about these things face to face, like many other faults of our society. For you too, out of love for the common good, often wish to see amended things that are now hard to correct.
2.10| Now let us look back at our own households. Is everything going well in yours? In mine there is nothing new. For my part, good things are all the more welcome to me because they last, and troubles are the lighter because I have grown used to them. Farewell.
3.0| Pliny to his friend Verus
3.1| Thank you for taking on the cultivation of the little farm I gave my nurse. At the time of my gift its value stood at a hundred thousand sesterces; later, as its income fell, its value also went down, but now, under your care, it will recover.
3.2| Only remember that what I am entrusting to you is not trees and land (though these too), but my little gift, and that it be as productive as possible matters no more to her who received it than to me who gave it. Farewell.
4.0| Pliny to his Calpurnia
4.1| Never have I complained more about my duties, which would not let me either go with you when you set out for Campania for your health, or follow straight after you once you had gone.
4.2| For now above all I wanted to be with you, so that I could believe my own eyes about what you were doing for your strength and your frail little body, and whether you were getting through the pleasures of your retreat and the riches of the region without harm.
4.3| Indeed, even if you were well, I would miss you and not without worry; for it is a state of suspense and anxiety to know nothing for a while about someone you love most ardently.
4.4| But as it is, the thought both of your absence and of your poor health terrifies me with an uncertain and shifting anxiety. I fear everything, I imagine everything, and, as is the nature of those who are afraid, I picture most of all the things I most dread.
4.5| So I beg you all the more earnestly to take care of my fear with one letter, or even two, every day. I will feel easier while I am reading, and I will be afraid again the moment I have read. Farewell.
5.0| Pliny to his friend Ursus
5.1| I had written that Varenus had won leave to summon witnesses. To most this seemed fair, to some unfair, and stubbornly so, above all to Licinius Nepos. At the next meeting of the senate, when other business was being brought forward, he spoke about the last decree of the senate and reopened a case that had been settled.
5.2| He added that the consuls ought to be asked to bring forward a motion, on the model of the law on electoral bribery, concerning the law on extortion: whether it was the senate's pleasure that a clause be added to that law for the future, so that, just as under it the prosecutors had the power of making inquiry and of summoning witnesses, so too the defendants should have it.
5.3| There were some to whom this speech of his was displeasing, as late and untimely and preposterous, since, having let slip the time for speaking against it, it rebuked what was done when he could have met it.
5.4| Juventius Celsus, the praetor, rebuked him as a corrector of the senate, both at length and vehemently. Nepos replied, and Celsus again; neither restrained himself from insults.
5.5| I do not wish to relate what I was distressed to hear them say. All the more I disapproved of some of our number, who ran now to Celsus, now to Nepos, as the one or the other spoke, from desire of listening, and now as if to goad and inflame, now as if to reconcile and compose, more often prayed for one of them singly, sometimes for both, that Caesar be favourable, as at some show.
5.6| To me that also was extremely bitter, that each had been told what the other was preparing. For Celsus replied to Nepos from a pamphlet, and Nepos to Celsus from his writing tablets.
5.7| So great the talkativeness of friends, that men about to quarrel knew this very thing about each other, as though it had been agreed. Farewell.
6.0| Pliny to his friend Fundanus.
6.1| If ever, now especially I should wish you to be at Rome, and I ask that you be. I need a partner in my prayer, labour and anxiety. Julius Naso is seeking office; he seeks it with many, with good men, whom it is as glorious as it is difficult to surpass.
6.2| So I am in suspense and exercised by hope, affected by fear, and I do not feel that I am a consular; for again I seem to myself a candidate for all the offices I have run through.
6.3| He deserves this care by his long affection for me. My friendship with him is not, it is true, one handed down from our fathers - my age made that impossible -; yet when I was scarcely a youth, his father used to be pointed out to me with great praise. He was fondest not only of studies but even of students, and almost daily came to hear those whom I then attended, Quintilian and Nicetes Sacerdos; he was a man otherwise famous and weighty, and one who ought to benefit his son by the memory of himself.
6.4| But many in the senate now do not know that man, many know him but revere only the living. So much the more must this son, setting aside his father's glory, which is a great distinction but carries little influence, strive and labour for himself.
6.5| This he has always done diligently, as if foreseeing this time: he has gained friends, he has cultivated those he gained, and me at least, as soon as he allowed himself to judge, he chose for love and imitation.
6.6| When I plead he stands by anxiously, when I recite he sits beside me; he is present even at my first and just-born little works, now alone, formerly with his brother, whose recent loss obliges me to take up his part and fill his place.
6.7| For I grieve both for him, most unworthily snatched by an untimely death, and for this one, deprived of the help of an excellent brother and left to friends alone.
6.8| For these reasons I demand that you come, and join your vote to mine. It matters very much to me to show you off, to go round with you. Such is your authority that I think I shall ask my own friends the more effectively with you.
6.9| Break off whatever holds you: this my time, this good faith, this even my dignity demands. I have taken up a candidate, and it is known that I have taken him up; I canvass, I run the risk; in sum, if Naso is given what he seeks, the honour is his; if it is refused, the rejection is mine. Farewell.
7.0| Pliny to his Calpurnia.
7.1| You write that you are affected not moderately by my absence, and have this one comfort, that in place of me you hold my little books, often even lay them where I used to lie.
7.2| It is pleasing that you miss me, pleasing that you find rest in these poultices; in turn I read your letters again and again and take them in my hands again and again as if new.
7.3| But by that I am the more kindled to longing for you: for if her letters have so much sweetness, how much charm is in her conversation! Yet do write as often as possible, although this so delights me that it tortures. Farewell.
8.0| Pliny to his friend Priscus.
8.1| Atilius Crescens you both know and love. For who a little distinguished is there who does not know or does not love him? Him I love not as many do, but most closely.
8.2| Our towns are separated by a journey of one day; we began to love each other as very young men, which is the most ardent love. It remained afterwards, and did not cool by judgment but grew strong. Those know it who look more closely at either of us. For he carries my friendship about by the widest proclamation, and I make plain how great a care to me are his modesty, quiet and security.
8.3| Indeed, when he feared the insolence of a certain man about to enter the tribunate of the plebs, and had told me so, I replied: "no one, while I live". Why this? That you may know that Atilius cannot receive injury while I am unharmed.
8.4| Again you will say, "Why this?" Valerius Varus owed him money. His heir is our Maximus, whom I too love, but you more closely.
8.5| I ask therefore, I even demand by the right of friendship, that you see to it that for my Atilius not only the principal but also the interest of several years be safe. He is a man most abstinent of what is another's and careful of his own; he is supported by no gains, he has no income except from thrift.
8.6| For the studies in which he most excels he practises only for pleasure and glory. Even the smallest loss weighs on him; although to repair what you have lost is heavier.
8.7| Relieve him of this scruple, relieve me of it: let me enjoy his charm and his wit. For I cannot see him sad, whose cheerfulness does not let me be sad.
8.8| In sum, you know the man's pleasantries; I should like you to take care that injury not turn them into gall and bitterness. What force he has when offended, believe from what he has in love. A great and free talent will not bear loss together with insult.
8.9| But, even if he bears it, I shall judge the loss mine, the insult mine, and I shall be angry not as on my own account but - that is - more heavily. Though why do I deal in warnings and, as it were, threats? Rather, as I had begun, I ask, I beg that you take pains lest he think himself, as I very much fear, neglected by me, or I myself by you. And you will give it, if this is as much your care as that is mine. Farewell.
9.0| Pliny to his friend Tacitus.
9.1| You recommend to me Julius Naso as a candidate. Naso to me? What if you recommended me myself? I bear it, however, and pardon. For I should have recommended the same man to you, if I had been away while you stayed at Rome.
9.2| Anxiety has this about it, that it thinks everything necessary. You, however, I advise to ask others; I shall be the servant, helper and sharer of your prayers. Farewell.
10.0| Pliny to his friend Albinus.
10.1| When I came to my mother-in-law's villa at Alsium, which for some time was Rufus Verginius's, the place itself renewed, not without pain, my longing for that best and greatest of men. For he used to cherish this retreat and even to call it the little nest of his old age.
10.2| Wherever I betook myself, my mind sought him, my eyes sought him. I wished also to see his monument, and was sorry to have seen it.
10.3| For it is still unfinished, nor is the difficulty of the work the cause, a modest and rather slight one, but the sloth of the man to whom the charge was entrusted. Indignation arises with pity, that after the tenth year from his death his remains and neglected ashes lie without inscription, without name, though his fame ranges over the whole world.
10.4| Yet he had commanded and provided that that divine and immortal deed be inscribed in verses: "Here lies Rufus, who, when Vindex was beaten, once claimed the empire not for himself but for his country."
10.5| So rare is good faith in friendships, so ready the forgetting of the dead, that we ourselves ought even to build our tombs and anticipate all the duties of heirs.
10.6| For who need not fear what, as we see, has befallen Verginius? The wrong done to him his own renown makes at once more unworthy and better known. Farewell.
11.0| Pliny to his friend Maximus.
11.1| O happy day! Called into council by the prefect of the city, I heard pleading on opposite sides young men of the highest hope and the highest character, Fuscus Salinator and Ummidius Quadratus, an outstanding pair, who will be an ornament not only to our times but to letters themselves.
11.2| Wonderful in both is integrity, steadfastness unimpaired, becoming bearing, Latin speech, manly voice, tenacious memory, great talent, even judgment; each of which pleased me, and among these this, that they themselves looked on me as a guide, as a master, and to those who listened they seemed to rival me, to press on in my footsteps.
11.3| O happy day - I will repeat it - and to be marked by me with the whitest pebble! For what is more joyful publicly than for the most distinguished young men to seek name and fame from their studies, or more desired by me than to be set up as a pattern for those who are striving for the right?
11.4| I pray the gods that I may have this joy for ever; from the same I ask, with you as witness, that all who think it worth while to imitate me may wish to be better than I. Farewell.
12.0| Pliny to his wife's grandfather Fabatus.
12.1| You really ought not to recommend to me with a hesitating hand those you think should be protected. For it befits you to help many, and me to take up whatever concerns your care.
12.2| So for Bittius Priscus I shall do as much as I can, especially in my own arena, that is, before the centumviri.
12.3| Of the letters which, as you say, you wrote me "with an open heart," you bid me forget; but of none do I more gladly remember. For from them I feel especially how greatly you love me, since you have called me to account as you used to do with your own son.
12.4| Nor do I conceal that they were the more pleasing to me because I had a good cause, having attended with the greatest zeal to what you wished attended to.
12.5| So I ask again and again that always with the same frankness, whenever I seem to be idle - I say "seem," for I shall never be idle - you scold me, which I shall understand to proceed from the highest love, and you will rejoice that I have not deserved it. Farewell.
13.0| Pliny to his friend Ursus.
13.1| Have you ever seen anyone so toiling and harried as my Varenus? What he had obtained with the greatest exertion he had to defend and, as it were, ask for again.
13.2| The Bithynians dared to carp at and undermine, before the consuls, the senate's decree, and even to make accusations to the emperor in his absence; sent back by him to the senate, they did not desist. Claudius Capito spoke, more irreverently than steadily, as one who accused a decree of the senate before the senate.
13.3| Catius Fronto replied weightily and firmly. The senate itself was wonderful; for even those who earlier had denied Varenus what he sought, after it had been granted, voted that the same be granted;
13.4| for it was right for individuals to dissent while the matter was still open, but once it was settled, what the majority had resolved had to be upheld by all.
13.5| Only Acilius Rufus, and with him seven or eight others (seven, in fact), held to their earlier opinion. Among this small band were some whose sudden gravity, or rather imitation of gravity, was laughed at.
13.6| But you can judge for yourself how much awaits us in the battle itself, when these skirmishes have been stirred up by what was a kind of prelude and preliminary run to it. Farewell.
14.0| Pliny to his friend Mauricus
14.1| You are tempting me to your place at Formiae. I will come on this condition: that you do nothing that is inconvenient for you; and by this same agreement I protect myself in turn. For what I pursue is not sea and shore, but you, leisure and freedom; otherwise it would be better to stay in the city.
14.2| For one must do everything either at someone else's pleasure or at one's own. My own stomach, certainly, is so made that it wants nothing unless it is whole and unmixed. Farewell.
15.0| Pliny to his friend Romanus
15.1| You missed an extraordinary scene. So did I, but the story reached me fresh. Passennus Paulus, a brilliant Roman knight, and one of exceptional learning, writes elegies. It runs in his family: he comes from the same town as Propertius, and even counts Propertius among his ancestors.
15.2| He was giving a reading, and began like this: "Priscus, you bid me..." At this Javolenus Priscus, who was there as a close friend of Paulus, said: "Indeed I do not bid you." Imagine the laughter, the jokes.
15.3| Priscus is, to be sure, of doubtful sanity, yet he takes part in public duties, is called in to councils, and even gives public opinions on the civil law; all the more reason why what he did then was both ridiculous and remarkable.
15.4| Meanwhile another man's madness cast something of a chill over Paulus. So careful must those who are going to give readings be to see not only that they themselves are sane, but also that they invite sane people. Farewell.
16.0| Pliny to his friend Tacitus
16.1| You ask me to set down for you how my uncle died, so that you can hand it down to posterity more truthfully. I am grateful; for I see that, if his death is made famous by you, undying glory lies in store for it.
16.2| For although he perished in the ruin of the loveliest of lands, together with peoples and cities, in a disaster that will be remembered, as if he were to live forever; and although he himself produced a great many works that will endure, still the everlasting life of your writings will add much to his lasting fame.
16.3| For my part, I count those people happy to whom the gods have granted either to do things worth writing about or to write things worth reading, and those most happy to whom they have granted both. My uncle will be among their number, through his own books and through yours. All the more gladly, then, do I take up the task you lay on me; indeed I claim it for myself.
16.4| He was at Misenum, in personal command of the fleet. On the ninth day before the Kalends of September, at about the seventh hour, my mother pointed out to him that a cloud of unusual size and appearance was coming into view.
16.5| He had been out in the sun, then had a cold bath, had eaten a light meal lying down, and was at work; he called for his sandals and climbed to a spot from which that wonder could best be seen. A cloud was rising (to those looking from a distance it was unclear from which mountain; later it was learned that it was Vesuvius), whose likeness and shape no tree would have expressed better than a pine.
16.6| For it was carried up to a great height on what was like a very tall trunk and then divided into a number of branches. I believe this was because it had been lifted by a fresh blast of air, and then, as the blast weakened, was left without support, or else, overcome by its own weight, it thinned out and spread sideways. At times it was white, at times dirty and blotched, according to whether it had carried up earth or ash.
16.7| To a man of his great learning it seemed something important, and worth knowing about at closer range. He ordered a Liburnian galley to be made ready, and offered me the chance to come with him if I wished. I answered that I would rather keep on with my studies, and as it happened he himself had given me something to write.
16.8| He was leaving the house when he received a note from Rectina, wife of Tascus, terrified by the danger hanging over her (for her villa lay at the foot of the mountain, and there was no escape except by ship): she begged him to rescue her from such peril.
16.9| He changed his plan, and what he had begun in a spirit of inquiry he carried through in the spirit of a hero. He had the quadriremes launched and went aboard himself, intending to bring help not only to Rectina but to many others, for that lovely stretch of coast was thickly settled.
16.10| He hurried toward the place from which others were fleeing, and held his course and his helm straight for the danger, so free from fear that he dictated and had noted down every movement of that catastrophe, every shape it took, as he caught it with his own eyes.
16.11| Ash was already falling on the ships, hotter and thicker the closer they came; then pumice too, and black stones, scorched and cracked by fire; then suddenly shallow water, and the shore blocked by the debris of the mountain. He paused briefly, wondering whether to turn back; but when the helmsman urged him to do so, he said, "Fortune favors the brave: make for Pomponianus."
16.12| Pomponianus was at Stabiae, cut off by the bay between them (for the sea pours in there on a shore that gradually curves round in a sweep). There, although the danger was not yet approaching, it was in full view and, as it grew, would be very close, so he had put his baggage on board ship, resolved to flee if the contrary wind dropped. My uncle, carried in by that same wind, which was then most favorable to him, embraced the frightened man, comforted him, encouraged him; and to calm his fear with his own composure, he had himself carried to the bath. After bathing he lay down to dinner and ate, either cheerful or (which is just as great a thing) looking cheerful.
16.13| Meanwhile, from Mount Vesuvius, very broad sheets of flame and tall fires were blazing in many places, their glare and brightness heightened by the darkness of the night. To ease their fear, my uncle kept saying that these were fires the country people had left burning in their panic, and empty villas burning in the deserted countryside. Then he went to rest, and he truly slept; for those who were passing to and fro at his door could hear his breathing, which, owing to the size of his body, was the deeper and more resonant.
16.14| But the courtyard from which his room was reached had by now filled up with ash and pumice mixed together and had risen so high that, if he had stayed any longer in the bedroom, he would have been unable to get out. He was woken, came out, and rejoined Pomponianus and the others, who had stayed awake all night.
16.15| They took counsel together whether to stay under cover or to go out into the open. For the buildings were swaying with frequent and violent shocks, and seemed, as if torn from their foundations, to be moving now this way, now that, and then back again.
16.16| In the open, on the other hand, there was the fear of falling pumice, though it was light and porous; yet a comparison of the dangers chose this. With him, it was one reason that prevailed over another; with the others, one fear over another. They put pillows on their heads and tied them down with cloths; that was their protection against what was falling.
16.17| By now it was day elsewhere; there it was night, blacker and thicker than any night, though many torches and lights of various kinds relieved it. They decided to go out onto the shore and see from close at hand whether the sea would now allow anything; but it was still wild and against them.
16.18| There he lay down on a cloth that had been spread for him, and once and then again he called for cold water and drank it. Then flames, and the smell of sulfur that heralds flames, put the others to flight and roused him.
16.19| Leaning on two young slaves he stood up, and at once collapsed, as I gather because his breathing was choked by the denser fumes and his windpipe was blocked, which by nature was weak and narrow and often inflamed.
16.20| When daylight returned (the third day from the one he had last seen), his body was found whole and unharmed, covered, just as he had been dressed. The look of the body was more like a man asleep than a dead one.
16.21| Meanwhile at Misenum my mother and I... but this has nothing to do with history, and you wanted to know about nothing but his death. So I will stop.
16.22| I will add one thing: I have set down everything that I witnessed myself and everything I heard immediately afterward, when accounts are most accurate. You will pick out what matters most; for it is one thing to write a letter, another to write history, one thing to write for a friend, another to write for everyone. Farewell.
17.0| Pliny to his friend Restitutus
17.1| I cannot keep myself from pouring out to you in a letter, since I could not do it face to face, a small fit of indignation that came over me at a reading given by a certain friend. A book of the highest finish was being read.
17.2| Two or three people, eloquent in their own eyes and those of a few others, listened to it like deaf mutes. They did not open their lips, they did not stir a hand, they did not even get up, if only because they were tired of sitting.
17.3| What gravity is this? What wisdom? Or rather, what laziness, arrogance, perversity, or worse, what madness, to spend a whole day on giving offense, on leaving as an enemy the man you came to as the dearest of friends? Are you more eloquent yourself?
17.4| All the more reason not to be jealous; for the man who is jealous is the lesser man. In short, whether you do better, worse, or the same, praise the man, whether he is your inferior, your superior, or your equal: your superior, because unless he deserves praise you cannot be praised yourself; your inferior or your equal, because it adds to your own glory that the man you surpass or match should seem as great as possible.
17.5| For my part, I make a habit of revering and even admiring everyone who achieves anything in literature; for it is a difficult, arduous, exacting pursuit, and one that scorns in return those who scorn it. Unless perhaps you judge otherwise. And yet who has more respect for this work than you, who is a kinder judge of it?
17.6| It was for this reason that I chose you above all to reveal my indignation to, since you were the one I could most count on to share it. Farewell.
18.0| Pliny to his friend Sabinus
18.1| You ask me to take up the public case of the people of Firmum; and I will make the effort, though I am pulled in many directions by a great many duties. For I want to put both a most distinguished colony under obligation to me by my service as advocate, and you by a favor you will welcome greatly.
18.2| For since you have taken up our friendship, as you are fond of declaring, as a protection and an honor to yourself, there is nothing I ought to refuse you, especially when you ask on behalf of your native town. For what is more honorable than the prayers of a dutiful man, or more effective than those of a friend?
18.3| So pledge my word to your people of Firmum, or rather now ours. That they are worthy of my effort and devotion is guaranteed both by their own distinction and, above all, by this: it is likely that the people among whom a man like you has grown up are of the best. Farewell.
19.0| Pliny to his friend Nepos
19.1| Do you know that the price of land has gone up, especially near the city? The cause of this sudden rise is something much talked about. At the last elections the senate gave voice to some highly honorable sentiments: "Candidates are not to give dinners, not to send presents, not to deposit money."
19.2| Of these, the first two were being done as openly as they were done without restraint; the third, though it was kept hidden, was known for certain.
19.3| Then Homullus, a friend of ours, making watchful use of this accord in the senate, asked, in place of giving a formal opinion, that the consuls should make the wishes of all known to the emperor, and beg him to use his foresight to deal with this abuse too, as he had with others.
19.4| He has dealt with it: he has restrained the candidates' expenses, those shameful and disgraceful expenses, by the law on electoral bribery; and he has ordered them to invest a third of their fortunes in landed property, thinking it unseemly (and it was) that those seeking office should treat Rome and Italy not as their homeland but as an inn or a lodging-house, like travelers passing through.
19.5| So the candidates are rushing about; they are vying to buy up anything they hear is for sale, and so they cause more of it to come up for sale.
19.6| Accordingly, if you have had enough of your Italian estates, this is the time to sell them, and by Hercules just as much the time to buy in the provinces, while these same candidates are selling there so as to buy here. Farewell.
20.0| Pliny to his friend Tacitus
20.1| You say that the letter I wrote at your request about my uncle's death has made you want to know what fears, and what dangers too, I went through when I was left behind at Misenum (for I had broken off just as I was starting on that). "Though my mind shudders to remember... I will begin."
20.2| After my uncle had set out, I spent the rest of the time on my studies (that was why I had stayed behind); then came a bath, dinner, and sleep, broken and brief.
20.3| For many days before, there had been earth tremors, which were less alarming because they are usual in Campania; but that night they grew so strong that everything seemed not just to be shaken but to be overturned.
20.4| My mother burst into my bedroom; I was getting up in my turn, meaning to wake her if she were sleeping. We sat down in the open yard of the house, which kept the buildings apart from the sea by a short distance.
20.5| I do not know whether I should call it composure or foolishness (I was in my eighteenth year): I asked for a volume of Livy, and read it as if I had nothing else to do, and even went on making extracts, as I had begun. And now an acquaintance of my uncle's, who had recently come to him from Spain, when he saw my mother and me sitting there, and me even reading, rebuked her patience and my unconcern. I stayed just as intent on my book.
20.6| The first hour of the day had come, and the daylight was still faint and, as it were, sickly. The buildings around us had already been badly shaken, and though we were in an open place, it was a narrow one, and the fear of their collapse was great and certain.
20.7| Only then did we decide to leave the town. A stunned crowd followed us, preferring another's decision to its own, which in panic looks like prudence, and pressed on us and pushed us along in a huge column as we went.
20.8| Once we were clear of the buildings we stopped. There we saw many astonishing things and went through many terrors. The carriages we had ordered to be brought out kept running in opposite directions, though the ground was perfectly level, and would not stay in the same spot even when wedged with stones.
20.9| Besides this, we saw the sea being sucked back into itself and, as it were, driven back by the earthquake. Certainly the shore had advanced, and many sea creatures were stranded on dry sands. On the opposite side a black and dreadful cloud, torn by twisting, quivering bursts of fiery vapor, gaped open into long shapes of flame; these were like lightning flashes, but larger.
20.10| Then that same friend from Spain spoke more sharply and urgently: "If your brother, your uncle, is alive," he said, "he wants you to be safe; if he has died, he wanted you to survive him. So why are you slow to escape?" We answered that we would not allow ourselves to look to our own safety when we were uncertain about his.
20.11| Without waiting any longer he rushed off and got himself out of danger at full speed. Not long after, that cloud came down to the earth and covered the sea; it had surrounded Capri and hidden it, and had taken from sight the headland of Misenum.
20.12| Then my mother begged, urged, ordered me to escape however I could: a young man could do it, she said; she, weighed down by her years and her body, would die content if she had not caused my death. I answered that I would not be saved unless we were together; then I took her hand and made her quicken her pace. She obeyed reluctantly, and blamed herself for holding me back.
20.13| Now ash was falling, though still thinly. I looked back: a dense darkness was looming behind us, following us like a torrent pouring over the land. "Let us turn off," I said, "while we still can see, so that we are not knocked down in the road and trampled in the dark by the crowd of people going with us."
20.14| We had hardly sat down when night came: not a moonless or cloudy night, but the kind there is in closed rooms when a light has been snuffed out. One could hear women shrieking, the wailing of infants, the shouts of men; some were calling for their parents, others for their children, others for their husbands or wives, searching for them by voice and knowing them only by voice; some were lamenting their own fate, others the fate of their families; there were those who, from fear of death, prayed for death;
20.15| many raised their hands to the gods, but more took it that there were no gods anywhere any longer, and that this was the eternal and final night of the world. Nor were there lacking people who added to the real dangers with invented and false terrors. Some arrived announcing that this part of Misenum had collapsed and that part was on fire: the news was false, yet they were believed.
20.16| It grew a little lighter, which seemed to us not daylight but a sign of approaching fire. The fire, in fact, stopped some way off; then darkness again, ash again, thick and heavy. We kept getting up and shaking it off; otherwise we would have been buried and even crushed by its weight.
20.17| I could boast that not a groan, not a cowardly word escaped me in such dangers, had I not believed that I was perishing with everyone and everything with me: a wretched comfort in my mortality, and yet a great one.
20.18| At last that darkness thinned and drifted away like smoke or mist; soon there was real daylight, and the sun even shone out, but pale, as it usually is in an eclipse. Before our still-frightened eyes everything appeared changed, and covered with deep ash as if with snow.
20.19| We went back to Misenum, attended to our bodies as best we could, and spent an anxious, uncertain night between hope and fear. Fear won out; for the earthquake went on, and many people, beside themselves, were making a mockery of their own and others' misfortunes with terrifying prophecies.
20.20| Even then, though we had gone through danger and were expecting more, we had no thought of leaving until there was news of my uncle. You will read all this, which is by no means worthy of history, without intending to write it up; and you will have only yourself to blame, since you asked for it, if it seems unworthy even of a letter. Farewell.
21.0| Pliny to his friend Caninius
21.1| I am among those who admire the ancients, yet do not, like some, despise the talents of our own times. For nature is not as if weary and worn out so that she now produces nothing praiseworthy.
21.2| And indeed lately I heard Vergilius Romanus read to a few a comedy written on the model of Old Comedy, so well that it may some day itself become a model.
21.3| I do not know whether you know the man, although you should; he is notable for uprightness of character, elegance of talent, variety of works.
21.4| He has written mimiambs, delicately, sharply, charmingly, and in this kind most eloquently; for there is no kind which, if perfect, cannot be called most eloquent. He has written comedies, rivalling Menander and others of the same age; you might count these among those of Plautus and Terence.
21.5| Now for the first time he shows himself in Old Comedy, but not as if beginning. He lacked neither force, nor grandeur, nor subtlety, nor bitterness, nor sweetness, nor wit: he adorned the virtues, he pursued the vices; with invented names he used decorum, with true ones aptness.
21.6| Only about me he exceeded measure in excessive kindness, except that poets are allowed to lie.
21.7| In sum I shall wrest the book from him, and send it to you to be read, or rather learned by heart; for I do not doubt that, once you have taken it up, you will not lay it down. Farewell.
22.0| Pliny to his friend Tiro.
22.1| A great matter has been done, for all who are to govern provinces, great for all who trust their friends without reserve.
22.2| Lustricius Bruttianus, having detected his companion Montanius Atticinus in many shameful acts, wrote to Caesar. Atticinus added to his shameful acts by accusing the man he had deceived. The inquiry was taken up; I was in the council. Each pleaded for himself, and pleaded piecemeal and "by heads," a manner in which the truth is shown at once.
22.3| Bruttianus produced his will, which he said was written in Atticinus's hand; for by this both a secret intimacy and the necessity of complaining of one he had so loved were shown.
22.4| He listed foul and manifest crimes; which when Atticinus could not wash away, he threw them back in such a way that while defending himself he was proved base, while accusing, wicked. For he had corrupted a secretary's slave, intercepted the memoranda and tampered with them, and by the highest wickedness was using against his friend a crime of his own.
22.5| Caesar acted most beautifully: for he asked the opinion not on Bruttianus, but at once on Atticinus. He was convicted and relegated to an island; to Bruttianus a most just testimony of integrity was given, whom the glory of steadfastness also followed.
22.6| For defended most readily, he accused vehemently, and appeared no less keen than good and sincere.
22.7| I have written you this so as to forewarn you, who have drawn a province by lot, to trust yourself very much and not to trust anyone enough, then to know that if anyone by chance deceives you - which I pray against - vengeance is ready. But that there be no need of it, take heed again and again;
22.8| for it is not so pleasant to be avenged as it is wretched to be deceived. Farewell.
23.0| Pliny to his friend Triarius.
23.1| You urgently ask me to plead a cause belonging to your care, in other respects fine and famous. I shall do it, but not free. "How can it be," you say, "that you do not do it free?" It can: for I shall exact a fee more honourable than free advocacy.
23.2| I ask and even bargain that Cremutius Ruso plead with me. This is my habit and has already been done with several distinguished young men; for I wonderfully desire to show good young men to the forum, to commit them to fame.
23.3| If I owe it to anyone, I owe it to my Ruso, whether for his birth or for his exceptional affection for me; and I think highly of his being seen and heard in the same courts, on the same side.
23.4| Bind me, bind me before he speaks; for when he has spoken you will give thanks. I pledge that he will be equal to your anxiety, my hope, the greatness of the cause. His nature is the best, and he will soon bring forward others, if meanwhile he is advanced by us.
23.5| For no one's talent is so brilliant at once that it can emerge, unless subject-matter, opportunity, and also a patron and recommender fall to him. Farewell.
24.0| Pliny to his friend Macer.
24.1| How much it matters who does a thing! For the same deeds are either lifted very high or pressed very low by the renown or obscurity of those who do them.
24.2| I was sailing on our Larius when an older friend showed me a villa, and even a bedroom that juts out over the lake: "From this," he said, "a woman of our town once threw herself with her husband."
24.3| I asked the reason. The husband, from a long illness, was rotting with ulcers on the parts that are covered; his wife demanded to see them; for no one, she said, would report more faithfully whether he could be cured.
24.4| She saw, despaired, urged him to die, and she herself was companion of his death, indeed guide and example and compulsion; for she bound herself to her husband and threw herself into the lake.
24.5| This deed was not known even to me, a fellow townsman, until lately heard, not that it is less than Arria's famous deed, but that the woman herself was lesser. Farewell.
25.0| Pliny to his friend Hispanus.
25.1| You write that Robustus, a distinguished Roman knight, made a common journey with my friend Atilius Scaurus as far as Ocriculum, and afterwards appeared nowhere; you ask that Scaurus come, and lead us, if he can, to some traces of an inquiry.
25.2| He will come; I fear in vain. For I suspect that something of the kind happened to Robustus as once to Metilius Crispus, my fellow townsman.
25.3| For this man I had obtained the rank, and as he set out I had even given him forty thousand sesterces to equip and furnish himself, nor afterwards did I receive either a letter from him or any report of his end.
25.4| Whether he was waylaid by his own people or with his own people is doubtful; certainly neither he himself nor any of his slaves has appeared, any more than Robustus's.
25.5| Let us nevertheless try; let us summon Scaurus; let us grant this to your people, grant it to the most honourable prayers of the excellent young man, who with wonderful devotion and wonderful sagacity seeks his father. May the gods grant that he find the man himself, as he has already found with whom he had been! Farewell.
26.0| Pliny to his friend Servianus.
26.1| I rejoice and congratulate you that you have betrothed your daughter to Fuscus Salinator. A patrician house, a most honourable father, a mother of equal praise; himself studious, lettered, even eloquent, a boy in simplicity, a young man in affability, an old man in gravity. For I am not deceived by love.
26.2| I love him, indeed, without reserve - so he has deserved by his services and his respect - yet I judge, and the more keenly the more I love; and I pledge to you, as one who has tested him, that you will have a son-in-law than whom a better could not be imagined even in prayer.
26.3| It remains that he make you a grandfather as soon as possible of children like himself. How happy that time, when I shall be able to take his children, your grandsons, from your lap as if they were my own children or grandchildren, and hold them, as it were, with equal right! Farewell.
27.0| Pliny to his friend Severus.
27.1| You ask me to consider what you, as consul designate, should propose in honour of the emperor. The finding is easy, the choosing not easy; for from his virtues the material is abundant. I shall write, however, or - what I prefer - tell you in person, if I first show you my hesitation.
27.2| I doubt whether I ought to advise you what I did myself. When consul designate I abstained from all this, if not flattery, at least the appearance of flattery, not as one free and steadfast, but as one who understands our emperor, whose special praise I saw to be this, that I should decree nothing as if from necessity.
27.3| I also remembered that very many honours had been conferred on all the worst emperors, from whom this best man could be separated by no other means more than by diversity of proposing; and this very thing I did not pass over by concealment and silence, lest that judgment of mine should seem not judgment but forgetfulness.
27.4| So I did then; but not all like the same things, nor even agree. Besides, the reason for doing or not doing something changes with the condition of the men themselves and also of things and times.
27.5| For the recent works of the greatest of emperors give opportunity to propose things new, great, true. For which reasons, as I wrote above, I doubt whether I should advise you now what I advised myself then. This I do not doubt, that I ought to contribute to your deliberation what I did myself. Farewell.
28.0| Pliny to his friend Pontius.
28.1| I know what cause was your hindrance from being able to go ahead of my arrival in Campania. But although absent you have migrated here entire: so great a supply, both of town and of country produce, has been offered me in your name, all of which I accepted shamelessly, but I accepted it.
28.2| For your people asked me to do so, and I feared that, if I did not, your anger would fall on me and on them alike. In future, unless you set a limit, I shall; and I have already warned your people that if they bring so much again they will carry it all back.
28.3| You will say I ought to use your property as my own. Indeed: but I spare it just as I spare mine. Farewell.
29.0| Pliny to his friend Quadratus.
29.1| Avidius Quietus, who loved me uniquely and - what I rejoice in no less - approved me, as he often recalled many other things of Thrasea - for he was his intimate - so also this, that he used to teach that causes should be taken up either of friends, or of the deserted, or those that bear on an example.
29.2| Why those of friends needs no interpretation. Why the deserted? because in these especially the steadfastness and humanity of the pleader are seen. Why those bearing on an example? because it matters very much whether a good or a bad one is brought in.
29.3| To these kinds of causes I would add, ambitiously perhaps, yet add, famous and illustrious ones. For it is fair to plead sometimes for glory and fame, that is, in one's own cause. These limits, since you consulted me, I set for your dignity and modesty.
29.4| Nor does it escape me that practice both is and is held the best teacher of speaking; I see also many of small talent and no letters who by pleading have attained to plead well.
29.5| But I also find most true what I received from Pollio, or as if from Pollio: "By pleading well it came about that I often pleaded, by pleading often, that I pleaded less well," because, of course, by too constant practice what is acquired is facility rather than ability, not confidence but rashness.
29.6| Nor did it prevent Isocrates from being held the greatest of orators that by weakness of voice and timidity of bearing he was hindered from speaking in public. So read much, write much, practise; so that you can speak whenever you like: you will speak when you ought to wish.
29.7| This moderation I have myself kept, roughly; sometimes I have yielded to necessity, which is part of reason. For I have pleaded certain cases by order of the senate, which however were among those of that division of Thrasea's, that is, those bearing on an example.
29.8| I appeared for the people of Baetica against Baebius Massa: the question was whether an inquiry should be granted; it was granted. I appeared again for the same complainants against Caecilius Classicus: it was asked whether the provincials should be penalized as the proconsul's associates and agents; they paid the penalty.
29.9| I prosecuted Marius Priscus, who, condemned under the law on extortion, was taking advantage of the leniency of a law whose severity he had exceeded by the monstrousness of his crimes; he was banished.
29.10| I defended Julius Bassus, a man as careless and unguarded as he was far from wicked; judges having been appointed, he remained in the senate.
29.11| I recently spoke for Varenus, who asked that he be allowed in turn to summon witnesses; it was obtained. For the future I pray that I may be bidden to do chiefly those things that it would become me to have done even of my own accord. Farewell.
30.0| Pliny to his wife's grandfather Fabatus
30.1| By heaven, we ought to celebrate your birthday just as we do our own, since the happiness of our household depends on yours, and it is through your diligence and care that we are cheerful here and free from anxiety there.
30.2| The Camillian villa, which you own in Campania, has indeed been battered by age; and yet the more valuable parts either remain whole or have been only very slightly damaged.
30.3| We are therefore taking care that it is repaired in the most sound manner possible. I seem to have many friends, but of the kind that you look for and that the matter demands, almost none.
30.4| For they are all men of the gown and of the city; but the management of country estates calls for someone hardy and rustic, to whom that hard work will not seem burdensome, nor the care mean, nor the lonely life dreary.
30.5| You are thinking of Rufus in a most honourable way; for he was a close friend of your son. What he could furnish us there, however, I do not know; that he is very willing, I believe. Farewell.
31.0| Pliny to his friend Cornelianus
31.1| Summoned to the council by our Caesar at Centum Cellae (that is the name of the place), I took great pleasure in it.
31.2| For what is more delightful than to observe the justice, the gravity and the courtesy of the emperor, even in retirement, where they are most fully unfolded? There were various hearings, which tested the qualities of a judge in many different kinds of case.
31.3| Claudius Ariston, the leading man of the Ephesians, pleaded his cause, a generous man and popular without harming anyone; hence envy, and an informer was set on him by men wholly unlike him, and so he was acquitted and vindicated.
31.4| On the following day Gallitta was heard, accused of adultery. She was married to a military tribune who was about to seek public office, and through her love for a centurion she had stained both her own standing and her husband's. The husband had written to the consular legate, and he to Caesar.
31.5| Caesar examined the proofs, dismissed the centurion from the service and even banished him. There remained the other part of the punishment, for a crime that could only be the act of two; but the husband, not without some reproach for his forbearance, was held back by love of his wife, whom indeed he had even kept at home after the adultery was reported, as if content to have removed his rival.
31.6| Urged to carry the prosecution through, he did so unwillingly. But she had to be condemned even against the wishes of her accuser: she was condemned and left to the penalties of the Julian law. Caesar added to his verdict the name of the centurion and a mention of military discipline, so that he might not seem to be summoning all cases of this kind before himself.
31.7| On the third day the hearing was introduced, tossed about by many discussions and varied rumours, concerning the codicils of Julius Tiro, which were agreed to be genuine in part, and in part were said to be forged.
31.8| Sempronius Senecio, a Roman knight, and Eurythmus, a freedman and procurator of Caesar, were being put forward as the persons charged. The heirs, while Caesar was in Dacia, had jointly written a letter asking him to take up the hearing.
31.9| He had taken it up; on returning he had appointed the day, and when certain of the heirs, out of a sort of deference to Eurythmus, were dropping the accusation, he had said, most admirably: "That man is no Polyclitus, and I am no Nero." Nevertheless he had granted a postponement to those who asked, and when its time had run out he had taken his seat to hear the case.
31.10| From the heirs' side only two came in; they demanded that all the heirs be compelled to proceed, since all had joined in the accusation, or that they too be permitted to withdraw.
31.11| Caesar spoke with the utmost gravity and the utmost moderation, and when the advocate of Senecio and Eurythmus said that the accused were being left under suspicion unless they were heard, he said: "I do not care whether those men are left under suspicion; I am left under it."
31.12| Then, turning to us: "Consider what we ought to do; for those men want to complain that they were allowed not to be accused." Then, following the council's opinion, he directed that all the heirs be notified that they should either proceed or each separately justify his reasons for not proceeding; otherwise he would pronounce even upon false accusation.
31.13| You see how honourable, how serious the days were; and they were followed by most pleasant relaxations. We were invited every day to dinner; it was modest, if you thought of the emperor. Sometimes we listened to entertainments, sometimes the night was drawn out in most agreeable conversation.
31.14| On the last day, as we were leaving (so careful was Caesar's kindness), guest-gifts were sent. But for me, as the gravity of the hearings, the honour of the council and the charm and simplicity of the company were delightful, so too was the place itself most delightful.
31.15| A very beautiful villa is surrounded by the greenest fields and overlooks the shore, in whose bay a harbour is just now being made. Its left arm has been fortified with very strong work, the right is being constructed.
31.16| In the harbour mouth an island rises up to break the sea thrown against it by the wind, and to give ships a safe passage on either side. It rises by an art worth seeing: a ship carries huge stones, very broad, and sets them against it; these, thrown down one upon another, stay by their own weight and are gradually built up into a kind of mole.
31.17| Already a rocky ridge stands out and can be seen; it breaks the waves that strike it, flinging them up to an immense height; there is a vast roar there and the sea all around is white. Piers will then be added to the rocks, so that in time they will look like a natural island. This will be a harbor, and it already bears its maker's name, and it will be of the greatest value; for a very long stretch of harborless coast will have the use of this refuge. Farewell.
32.0| Pliny to his friend Quintilian
32.1| You yourself are a man of the greatest restraint, and you have trained your daughter as was fitting for a girl of your house, and for Tutilius's granddaughter. Yet since she is to marry a most honorable man, Nonius Celer, whose public duties lay on him a certain need for display, she ought, in keeping with her husband's position, to have clothing and attendants, things that do not indeed increase her standing, but do adorn and equip it.
32.2| Now I know that you are very rich in spirit but modest in means. So I claim a share of your burden for myself, and as a second father to our girl I contribute fifty thousand sesterces. I would contribute more, were I not sure that only the smallness of this little gift could persuade your modesty not to refuse it. Farewell.
33.0| Pliny to his friend Romanus
33.1| "Take it all away," he says, "and remove the labors you have begun!" Whether you are writing something or reading, have it taken up and removed, and receive my speech, divine as those arms were (could I have said anything prouder?), but in truth, fine among my own speeches; for it is enough for me to compete with myself.
33.2| It is the speech for Attia Viriola, and it stands out for the rank of the person, the rarity of the precedent, and the importance of the trial. For a woman of distinguished birth, married to a man of praetorian rank, disinherited by her eighty-year-old father within eleven days of his bringing home a stepmother for her, under the spell of love, was suing for her father's property before the fourfold court.
33.3| One hundred and eighty judges were sitting (for that is how many the four panels add up to); there was a huge array of counsel on both sides, the benches were crowded, and besides, a dense ring of bystanders surrounded the very wide courtroom in a circle many rows deep.
33.4| The tribunal, too, was thronged, and even in the upper gallery of the basilica women as well as men were leaning over, eager to hear (which was difficult) and to see (which was easy). There was great expectation among fathers, great expectation among daughters, and great expectation among stepmothers too.
33.5| The result was mixed: we won before two panels and lost before as many. It was truly remarkable and astonishing, such a difference in the same case, with the same judges, the same counsel, at the same time.
33.6| It happened by chance, though it did not look like chance, that the losers were the stepmother, herself heir to a sixth, and Suburanus, who, disinherited by his own father, with extraordinary effrontery was laying claim to another man's father's property, not having dared to sue for his own.
33.7| I have set this out for you, first so that the letter might tell you what the speech could not; and secondly (for I will reveal my tricks) so that you would read the speech more gladly if you felt you were not reading it but attending the trial. Long as it is, I do not despair of its winning the favor due to a very short one.
33.8| For it is kept fresh by the wealth of material, the neat arrangement, the many little narratives, and the variety of style. There is much in it (I would not dare say this to anyone but you) that is lofty, much that is combative, much that is subtle.
33.9| For in the midst of those sharp and elevated passages there is often a need to do sums, and almost to call for counters and a reckoning board, so that the Centumviral Court suddenly turns into the form of a private hearing.
33.10| We gave sail to indignation, we gave it to anger, we gave it to grief, and in a very grand case, as on a great sea, we were carried along by many winds.
33.11| In short, some of my close friends have taken to thinking that this speech (I will say it again) is, among my speeches, the For Ctesiphon. Whether that is true you will judge very easily, since you know all of them so well by heart that you can compare them with this one while reading this one alone. Farewell.
34.0| Pliny to his friend Maximus
34.1| You did well to promise a gladiatorial show to our people of Verona, who have loved you for a long time, look up to you, and honor you. It was from there, too, that you took your dearly loved and most excellent wife, to whose memory some public work or show was owed, and this kind above all, which is most fitting for a funeral.
34.2| Besides, you were asked with such unanimity that to refuse would have seemed not firm but harsh. This too was excellent, that you were so ready and so generous in giving the show; for a great spirit is shown in such things as well.
34.3| I wish the African beasts, of which you had bought a great many, had arrived by the appointed day; but even though they failed to come, held up by bad weather, you have still earned the credit for it, since it was not your fault that you could not put them on show. Farewell.
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