Pliny the Younger & Pliny the Elder · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
1.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
1.1| Your devotion, most revered Emperor, had wished that you should take your father's place as late as could be; yet the immortal gods hastened to bring your virtues to the helm of the state which you had already taken up.
1.2| I pray, therefore, that every prosperity, that is, everything worthy of your age, may befall you, and through you the human race. I wish you strength and good cheer, best of Emperors, both in private and in public life.
2.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
2.1| I cannot express in words, Sir, how much joy you have brought me by thinking me worthy of the right of three children. For although you granted this at the request of Julius Servianus, a most excellent man and most devoted to you, I still understand from your reply that you bestowed it on him the more gladly because it was for me that he was asking.
2.2| I seem, then, to have attained the height of my wishes, since at the very beginning of your most happy reign you have shown that I belong among those who enjoy your special favour; and so all the more do I long for children, whom I wanted to have even in that most grim age, as you may believe from my two marriages.
2.3| But the gods knew better, for they kept everything untouched for your goodness; I preferred to become a father at this time rather, when I would be both safe and happy.
3A.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
3A.1| As soon as your kindness, Sir, promoted me to the prefecture of the treasury of Saturn, I gave up all briefs as an advocate (which in any case I had never undertaken indiscriminately), so that I might devote my whole mind to the office entrusted to me.
3A.2| For this reason, when the provincials asked for me as their counsel against Marius Priscus, I both begged to be excused from this duty and obtained my request. But when afterwards the consul designate proposed that those of us whose excuses had been accepted should be approached and asked to put ourselves at the senate's disposal and allow our names to be cast into the urn, I thought it most in keeping with the tranquillity of your reign not to oppose the wish of that most distinguished order, especially when it was expressed so moderately.
3A.3| I hope that you will consider that there is good reason for this compliance of mine, since I desire all my deeds and words to win the approval of your most upright character.
3B.0| Trajan to Pliny
3B.1| You have played the part both of a good citizen and of a good senator by rendering to that most distinguished order the compliance which it most justly required. I am confident that you will fulfil that part in keeping with the trust you have undertaken.
4.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
4.1| Your kindness, best of Emperors, which I experience in the fullest measure, encourages me to dare to be indebted to you on behalf of my friends as well; and among them Voconius Romanus claims for himself perhaps the foremost place, my fellow pupil and companion from earliest youth.
4.2| For these reasons I had also asked your deified father to promote him to the most distinguished order. But this wish of mine has been kept for your goodness, because Romanus' mother had not yet completed in a fully legal manner her gift of four million sesterces, which she had declared she was conferring on her son in a letter written to your father; this she has since done, at my prompting.
4.3| For she has transferred the estates, and has completed all the other formalities that are usually required to carry out a transfer.
4.4| Since, then, the obstacle that was delaying our hopes has been removed, it is with great confidence that I give you my pledge for the character of my friend Romanus, which is adorned both by liberal studies and by exceptional devotion to his family, the devotion that earned him this very gift from his mother, and also, immediately, his father's inheritance and adoption by his stepfather.
4.5| All this is enhanced by the distinction of his birth and of his father's wealth; and I trust that each of these qualities will gain much recommendation to your kindness from my entreaties as well.
4.6| I ask you therefore, Sir, to let me enjoy the congratulations I so deeply desire, and to grant this to what I hope is an honourable affection of mine, so that I may be able to take pride in your judgments not only in my own case but also in my friend's.
5.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
5.1| Last year, Sir, when I was afflicted by a very serious illness, to the point of danger to my life, I engaged a masseur-physician; and I can only repay his care and devotion as they deserve through the favour of your kindness.
5.2| I therefore ask you to grant him Roman citizenship. For he is of foreign status, having been freed by a foreign woman. His name is Arpocras; his patroness was Thermuthis, daughter of Theon, who died long ago. I also ask you to grant the full rights of Quirites to the freedwomen of Antonia Maximilla, a most distinguished lady, Hedia and Antonia Harmeris; I make this request of you at the request of their patroness.
6.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
6.1| I thank you, Sir, for granting without delay both the full rights of Quirites to the freedwomen of a lady closely connected with me and Roman citizenship to Arpocras, my masseur-physician. But when I was submitting his age and property as you had instructed, I was advised by people more experienced than I that I ought first to have obtained Alexandrian citizenship for him, and then Roman, since he was an Egyptian.
6.2| I, however, believing that there was no difference between Egyptians and other foreigners, had been content to write to you only that he had been freed by a foreign woman and that his patroness had died long ago. I do not complain of this ignorance of mine, through which it has come about that I am indebted to you more than once for the same man. So I ask you, in order that I may enjoy your favour lawfully, to grant him Alexandrian citizenship [and Roman] as well. To prevent anything from delaying your kindness again, I have sent his age and property to the freedmen of yours to whom you had directed me.
7.0| Trajan to Pliny
7.1| In accordance with the established practice of emperors, I have resolved not to grant Alexandrian citizenship lightly. But since you have already obtained Roman citizenship for Arpocras, your masseur-physician, I cannot bring myself to refuse this request of yours too. You will have to let me know which nome he comes from, so that I can send a letter for you to my friend Pompeius Planta, prefect of Egypt.
8.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
8.1| Sir, when your deified father had urged all citizens to generosity, both by a most beautiful speech and by a most honourable example, I asked him to allow me to move to the town the statues of emperors, which I had been keeping on distant estates, handed down to me through several successions just as I had received them, and to add a statue of himself.
8.2| He had granted me this with the fullest testimony of approval; I at once wrote to the decurions to assign a site where I could build a temple with my own money; in honour of the work itself they offered me the choice of the place.
8.3| But I was held back first by my own health, then by that of your father, and afterwards by the duties of the office entrusted to me by you; now I seem able, most conveniently, to hurry out to the spot. For my month's service comes to an end on the Kalends of September, while the month after it has several holidays.
8.4| I ask, therefore, above all that you allow me to adorn the work I am about to begin with your statue also; and then, so that I may do this as soon as possible, that you grant me leave of absence.
8.5| It is not in keeping with my frankness to hide from your goodness that you will, incidentally, be doing a very great service to my private affairs. For the letting of the lands I hold in the same region, which in any case exceeds 400, cannot be put off, so much so that a new tenant must carry out the next pruning. Besides, successive bad harvests force me to think of remissions of rent, an account of which I cannot draw up unless I am there.
8.6| I shall therefore owe to your indulgence, Sir, both the promptness of my dutiful tribute and the ordering of my affairs, if you give me thirty days' leave for both these purposes. For I cannot fix a shorter time, since both the town and the lands of which I speak lie beyond the hundred-and-fiftieth milestone.
9.0| Trajan to Pliny
9.1| You have given many reasons for asking leave, and all of them public ones; but for me your wish alone would have been enough. For I do not doubt that you will return to so demanding an office as soon as you can. I allow a statue of me to be set up by you in the place you desire, although I am very sparing of honours of that kind, so that I may not seem to have hindered the course of your devotion toward me.
10.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
10.1| Sir, I cannot express in words with what joy your letters have filled me, from which I learned that you have granted Alexandrian citizenship also to Harpocras, my masseur, although according to the established practice of emperors you had resolved not to give it lightly. I inform you that Harpocras is of the nome of Memphis.
10.2| I ask, therefore, most indulgent emperor, that you send a letter, as you promised, to Pompeius Planta, prefect of Egypt, your friend. As I am going out to meet you, so that I may the sooner, Sir, enjoy the joy of your most longed-for arrival, I ask that you allow me to go as far as possible to meet you.
11.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
11.1| My recent illness, Sir, put me under obligation to the physician Postumius Marinus; I can repay him in equal thanks by your kindness, if you will grant my prayers in accordance with your habitual goodness.
11.2| I ask, therefore, that you give citizenship to his relatives, to Chrysippus, Mithridates' son, and to Chrysippus's wife Stratonice, daughter of Epigonus, and likewise to the same Chrysippus's children, Epigonus and Mithridates, on the terms that they remain in their father's power and that the rights of patrons over freedmen be preserved for them. I ask likewise that you grant the right of Roman citizenship to Lucius Satrius Abascantus, Publius Caesius Phosphorus and Pancharia Soteris; this I ask from you with their patrons' consent.
12.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
12.1| I know, Sir, that our prayers cling to your memory, which holds most tenaciously to doing good. Yet since you have been indulgent in this matter too, I remind you and at the same time earnestly ask that you deem Attius Sura worthy of the honour of the praetorship, since a place is vacant.
12.2| Toward this hope, a man otherwise very quiet is encouraged by the splendour of his birth, by his utmost integrity in poverty, and above all by the good fortune of the times, which calls forth and lifts up the good conscience of your citizens to enjoy your indulgence.
13.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
13.1| Sir, since I know that it contributes to the witness and praise of my character to be honoured by the judgment of so good an emperor, I ask you to deem it fitting to add to the rank to which your indulgence has advanced me either an augurship or a septemvirate, since they are vacant, so that by right of priesthood I may publicly pray to the gods on your behalf, whom I now pray to in private devotion.
14.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
14.1| Best of emperors, I congratulate you, both on your own account and on that of the commonwealth, on your victory, the greatest, the most beautiful, the most ancient; and I pray the immortal gods that so happy an outcome may follow all your designs, while by such great virtues the glory of the empire is both renewed and increased.
15.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
15.1| Because I trust, Sir, that it is a matter of your concern, I report to you that I have sailed to Ephesus with all my party, round Malea, although held back by contrary winds. Now I intend to make for the province partly in coasting vessels, partly in carriages. For just as the heat is oppressive for travel by land, so the etesian winds are against continuous sailing.
16.0| Trajan to Pliny
16.1| You have reported rightly, my dearest Secundus. For it concerns me by what route you arrive in your province. And you wisely decide to use now ships, now carriages, as the places advise.
17A.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
17A.1| Just as I had a most healthful voyage as far as Ephesus, Sir, so from there, after I began to travel by carriage, I was troubled by the most oppressive heat and even by slight fevers, and I stopped at Pergamum.
17A.2| Again, when I had changed to small coasting boats, held back by contrary winds, somewhat later than I had hoped, that is on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of October, I entered Bithynia. Yet I cannot complain of the delay, since it fell to me, which was most auspicious, to celebrate your birthday in the province.
17A.3| I am now examining the expenditures, revenues and debtors of the community of Prusa; the more I handle the matter, the more necessary I understand this to be. For much money is being held back by private persons for various reasons; besides, certain sums are being paid out on outlays that are by no means lawful.
17A.4| I have written this to you, Sir, at the very beginning of my arrival.
17B.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
17B.1| On the fifteenth day before the Kalends of October, Sir, I entered the province, which I found in that obedience and that loyalty toward you which you deserve from the human race.
17B.2| Sir, consider whether you judge it necessary to send a surveyor here. For it seems that considerable sums of money could be recovered from the overseers of public works, if the measurements are honestly carried out. So at least I foresee from the accounts of Prusa, which I am handling most closely at this moment.
18.0| Trajan to Pliny
18.1| I could wish that you had been able to reach Bithynia without complaint from your frail body or from your party, and that your trip from Ephesus had been like the voyage which you had experienced up to that point.
18.2| On what day you arrived in Bithynia I learned, my dearest Secundus, from your letter. The provincials, I believe, will understand that provision has been made for them by me. For you also will take pains that it be clear to them that you were chosen to be sent to them in my place.
18.3| The accounts of the communities, moreover, must be examined by you before all else; for it is well established that they have been badly handled. I have hardly enough surveyors even for those works which are done at Rome or nearby; but in every province men can be found who may be trusted, and so you will not lack them, provided you are willing to examine things diligently.
19.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
19.1| I ask, Sir, that you guide me with your counsel in my uncertainty, whether I ought to maintain the prison guards through the public slaves of the communities, as has been done until now, or through soldiers. For I fear both that they will be guarded without enough fidelity by the public slaves, and that this duty will tie up no small number of soldiers.
19.2| For the present I have joined a few soldiers to the public slaves. Yet I see the danger that this very thing may become a cause of negligence in both, while each side trusts it can throw the shared fault on the other.
20.0| Trajan to Pliny
20.1| There need be no turning of more of our fellow soldiers to the holding of the prisons, my dearest Secundus. Let us persevere in the custom which that province has, that they be guarded by public slaves.
20.2| For it rests on your strictness and diligence that they do this faithfully. Above all, as you write, it is to be feared that if soldiers are mixed in with the public slaves, they will be more negligent through trust in one another; but let this too stay with us, that the fewest possible must be drawn away from the standards.
21.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
21.1| Gavius Bassus, prefect of the Pontic shore, came to me, Sir, with the greatest respect and the greatest attentiveness, and was with me for several days; so far as I could see, an excellent man and worthy of your indulgence. I made it known to him that you had instructed that he be content with ten beneficiarii, two horsemen and one centurion from the cohorts which you wished me to command.
21.2| He replied that this number did not suffice for him, and that he himself would write to you on the matter. This was the reason why I did not think that those he has beyond the number should be recalled at once.
22.0| Trajan to Pliny
22.1| Gavius Bassus has written to me also that the number of soldiers which I included in my instructions to be given to him is not enough for him. I have ordered what I wrote in reply to him to be added to this letter, so that you may know it. It makes a great difference whether the matter demands it or he wishes to use them more widely on this pretext.
22.2| We, however, must look only to what is useful, and, as far as can be done, take care that soldiers are not away from the standards.
23.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
23.1| The people of Prusa, Sir, have a bath; it is dirty and old. They therefore think it very important that a new one be made; and it seems to me that you can indulge their wish.
23.2| For there will be money from which it may be made: first that which I have already begun to recover and exact from private persons; then that which they themselves, accustomed to spend on oil, are ready to contribute to the work of the bath; which, besides, both the dignity of the community and the splendour of your age demand.
24.0| Trajan to Pliny
24.1| If the construction of a new bath is not going to overburden the resources of the people of Prusa, we can indulge their wish, provided that on that account nothing is levied or less is provided to them in future for their necessary expenses.
25.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
25.1| Servilius Pudens, the legate, came to Nicomedia, Sir, on the eighth day before the Kalends of December, and freed me from the anxiety of a long wait.
26.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
26.1| Rosianus Geminus, Sir, has been joined to me by your kindnesses to me in the closest bond; for I had him as quaestor in my consulship. I have found him most attentive to me; he shows me such respect after the consulship, and adds to the pledges of public connection the services of private friendship.
26.2| I ask, therefore, that you yourself favour my prayers before you, in keeping with his standing. If you believe me at all, you will grant him your indulgence; he himself will take pains to earn greater things in whatever you entrust to him. What makes me more sparing in praise is that I hope his integrity, honesty and industry are thoroughly known to you, not only through the offices he held in the City under your eyes, but also from his service as a comrade in arms.
26.3| There is one thing which, because of my affection for him, I do not yet seem to myself to have done fully enough, and I do it again and again, and ask you, Sir, to be willing that I should rejoice, as soon as possible, in the honouring of my quaestor's rank, that is, through him, of my own.
27.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
27.1| Maximus, your freedman and procurator, Sir, in addition to the ten beneficiarii whom you ordered me to assign to Gemellinus, an excellent man, affirms that six soldiers are necessary to himself as well. For the time being I thought they should be left in his service, as I had found them, especially since he was going to Paphlagonia to procure grain. Indeed, for his protection, because he so desired, I added two horsemen. For the future, I ask that you write back what you wish to be observed.
28.0| Trajan to Pliny
28.1| You have rightly furnished my freedman Maximus with soldiers now, as he sets out to procure grain. For he too was discharging an extraordinary duty. When he has returned to his former business, the two soldiers given by you will be enough for him, and as many from Virdius Gemellinus, my procurator, whom he assists.
29.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
29.1| Sempronius Caelianus, an excellent young man, sent me two slaves found among the recruits; I have postponed their punishment so as to consult you, the founder and strengthener of military discipline, about the manner of the penalty.
29.2| For I myself am uncertain, chiefly for this reason, that although they had already spoken the oath, they had not yet been distributed into units. I ask, therefore, Sir, that you write what I ought to follow, especially since it bears on precedent.
30.0| Trajan to Pliny
30.1| Sempronius Caelianus acted in accordance with my instructions in sending to you those about whom it will have to be inquired whether they appear to have deserved capital punishment. It matters, however, whether they offered themselves as volunteers, or were chosen, or even were given as substitutes.
30.2| If they were chosen, the examination was at fault; if they were given as substitutes, the blame lies with those who gave them; if they came of their own accord, knowing their own condition, they will have to be punished. For it does not matter much that they have not yet been distributed into units. For that day on which they were first approved demanded from them the truth about their origin.
31.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
31.1| With your greatness left unharmed, Sir, you must descend to my concerns, since you have given me the right to refer to you the matters about which I am in doubt.
31.2| In very many communities, most of all at Nicomedia and Nicaea, certain persons who were condemned either to the works or to the gladiatorial school and to similar kinds of punishments perform the duty and service of public slaves, and even receive an annual allowance like public slaves. When I heard this, I hesitated long and much over what I ought to do.
31.3| For I thought it too severe to return to their punishment, after a long time, most of them now old and, as is affirmed, living frugally and modestly, and I thought it not honourable enough to keep the condemned in public offices; again, I judged it useless for them to be fed idle by the commonwealth, and dangerous for them not to be fed.
31.4| Of necessity, therefore, I left the whole matter in suspense while I consulted you. You will ask, perhaps, how it came about that they were released from the punishments to which they had been condemned. I too inquired, but found nothing that I can affirm to you. While the decrees by which they had been condemned were produced, there were no records by which their release could be proved.
31.5| There were some, however, who said that they had been dismissed on their petitions, by order of proconsuls or legates. What added credibility was that it was believable that no one would have dared this without authority.
32.0| Trajan to Pliny
32.1| Let us remember that you were sent into that province because many things in it appeared to need correction. And this above all will need correcting, that those who had been condemned to punishment have not only been released from it without authority, as you write, but are even brought back into the position of honest servants.
32.2| Those, therefore, who were condemned within these last ten years and were not released by any proper authority, ought to be returned to their punishment; if any older ones are found, old men condemned more than ten years ago, let us distribute them to those services which are not far from punishment. It is customary also for such persons to be assigned to the baths, to the cleaning of sewers, and likewise to the repair of roads and streets.
33.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
33.1| While I was making a tour of another part of the province, a very great fire at Nicomedia destroyed many private houses and two public buildings, the Gerusia and the Iseon, although a street lay between.
33.2| It was spread more widely, first by the violence of the wind, then by the idleness of the people, who, it is well established, stood idle and motionless as spectators of so great an evil; and besides, there is nowhere in public any pump, any bucket, in short any apparatus for putting out fires. And these, as I have already directed, will be provided;
33.3| you, Sir, consider whether you think a guild of builders should be established, of 150 men at most. I shall take care that no one is admitted except a builder, and that they do not use the right granted for any other purpose; nor will it be difficult to watch so few.
34.0| Trajan to Pliny
34.1| It has indeed occurred to you, following the examples of a good many places, that a guild of builders could be established among the people of Nicomedia. But let us remember that that province, and especially those communities, have been troubled by factions of this kind. Whatever name we give, for whatever reason, to those who have been drawn together for the same purpose, they will soon become political clubs.
34.2| It is therefore better to provide the things that can help in checking fires, and to warn the owners of estates to hold them back themselves and, if the situation requires, to use the rush of the populace for this purpose.
35.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
35.1| We have undertaken, Sir, and likewise discharged, the solemn vows for your safety, in which the public welfare is contained, praying the gods that they may be willing for these vows always to be paid and always to be sealed.
36.0| Trajan to Pliny
36.1| That you, with the provincials, have paid and gladly pronounced vows to the immortal gods for my welfare and safety, I learned from your letter, my dearest Secundus.
37.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
37.1| On an aqueduct, Sir, the people of Nicomedia spent XXX CCCXVIII sesterces; it was abandoned while still unfinished, and has even been torn down; again, 200 was paid out on another aqueduct. This one too being abandoned, a fresh expenditure is needed, so that they may have water, who have badly wasted so great a sum of money.
37.2| I myself came to a very pure spring, from which the water seems to need to be brought, as was attempted at the beginning, by an arched structure, so that it does not come merely to the level, low-lying parts of the city. A very few arches still stand; some can be raised again with squared stone, which was taken from the earlier work; some part, as it seems to me, will have to be done in brickwork, for that is both easier and cheaper.
37.3| But above all it is necessary that you send either a water-finder or an architect, lest what happened happen again. This one thing I affirm, that both the usefulness and the beauty of the work are most worthy of your age.
38.0| Trajan to Pliny
38.1| Care must be taken that water be brought into the city of Nicomedia. I truly believe that you will undertake this work with the diligence you ought. But, by my faith, it belongs to that same diligence of yours to inquire through whose fault the people of Nicomedia have wasted so great a sum of money up to this time, lest, while they oblige one another, they both begin aqueducts and abandon them. Whatever you find out, bring it to my knowledge.
39.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
39.1| The theatre at Nicaea, Sir, built for the greater part but still unfinished, has drained more than ten million sesterces, as I hear; for the account of the work has not been examined: I fear to no purpose.
39.2| For it has settled and gapes with huge cracks, whether the cause is the damp and soft ground, or the stone itself, which is slight and crumbling: it is certainly worth deliberating whether it should be completed, or left, or even torn down. For the props and substructures with which it is constantly propped up seem to me not so much firm as costly.
39.3| Many things are owed to this theatre from the promises of private persons, such as the basilicas around it, and the porticoes above the auditorium. All these are now put off while what must be completed first is stalled.
39.4| The same people of Nicaea, before my arrival, began to rebuild a gymnasium lost in a fire, far more extensive and spacious than it had been, and have already spent a good deal; there is a danger that it will be to little use; for it is ill-arranged and sprawling. Besides, an architect, certainly a rival of the man by whom the work was begun, affirms that the walls, although twenty-two feet wide, cannot bear the loads placed on them, because they are filled in the middle with rubble and are not bound round with brickwork.
39.5| The people of Claudiopolis also, in a low-lying place, with a mountain even overhanging, are digging out rather than building an enormous bath, and that from money which the councillors added by your kindness either have already offered on their entry or will contribute at our demand.
39.6| Therefore, since I fear that there public money, and here your gift, which is more precious than any money, may be badly placed, I am compelled to ask you to send an architect, not only on account of the theatre but of these baths as well, to look into whether it is more useful, after the expenditure that has been made, to complete the works in some fashion as they were begun, or to correct what seems to need correcting and move what ought to be moved, lest, while we wish to preserve what has been spent, we spend badly what must be added.
40.1| Trajan to Pliny. What ought to be done about the theatre begun at Nicaea you will best deliberate and decide on the spot. It will suffice if I am told which opinion you have adopted. Then, however, demand the works from the private persons, when the theatre, on account of which those promises were made, has been completed.
40.2| The little Greeks are fond of gymnasia; perhaps for this reason the people of Nicaea took up its construction with a larger spirit: but they ought to be content with what can suffice for them.
40.3| What should be advised for the people of Claudiopolis about the bath which they began, as you write, in a not very suitable place, you will decide. Architects cannot be wanting to you. There is no province that does not have both skilled and talented men; only do not suppose it is quicker to send from the City, when they are accustomed to come to us even from Greece.
41.1| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan. To me, considering both the greatness of your fortune and of your spirit, it seems most fitting that works be shown which are worthy no less of your eternity than of your glory, and which will have as much usefulness as beauty.
41.2| In the territory of Nicomedia there is a very large lake. Across it marble, produce, timber and building materials are carried by boat, at moderate cost and effort, as far as the road; from there they are carried to the sea by wagons, with great effort and greater expense [….] this work demands many hands. But these, moreover, are not lacking. For in the countryside there is a great supply of men, and the greatest in the city, and there is sure hope that all will most willingly take up a work that is profitable to all.
41.3| It remains for you, if it seems good to you, to send a leveller or an architect, to examine carefully whether the lake is higher than the sea, which the craftsmen of this region maintain is higher by forty cubits.
41.4| I find in the same places a canal cut by a king, but it is uncertain whether to gather the moisture of the surrounding fields or to join the lake to the river; for it is unfinished. This too is doubtful: whether the king was cut off by death or gave up hope of completing the work.
41.5| But by this very thing—for you will bear with me as ambitious for your glory—I am spurred and kindled to long for you to complete what kings had only begun.
42.0| Trajan to Pliny
42.1| That lake can tempt us to want to join it to the sea; but it must plainly be carefully examined, lest, once let out into the sea, it flow away entirely; how much water it receives, and from where, must certainly be learned. You will be able to ask Calpurnius Macer for a leveller, and I shall send you from here someone skilled in works of this kind.
43.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
43.1| As I was inquiring into the expenses of the community of Byzantium, which are very great, I was informed, Sir, that an envoy is sent every year to greet you with a decree, and that twelve thousand sesterces are given to him.
43.2| Mindful, therefore, of your purpose, I thought that the envoy should be kept back, but the decree sent, so that the expense might be lightened and the public duty at the same time fulfilled.
43.3| Charged to the same community were three thousand sesterces, given each year under the name of travelling money to an envoy going to greet publicly the man who commands Moesia. I thought these should be cut off for the future.
43.4| I ask you, Sir, to be so good as to write back what you think, and either confirm my plan or correct my error.
44.0| Trajan to Pliny
44.1| You did very well, my dearest Secundus, in remitting to the people of Byzantium those twelve thousand that were spent on an envoy to greet me. They will fulfil this part even if only the decree is sent through you. The governor of Moesia too will forgive them if they have honoured him less expensively.
45.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
45.1| I ask that you write, Sir, whether permits whose day has passed are to be observed at all, and for how long you wish, and free me from hesitation. For I fear that, slipping through ignorance to one side or the other, I may either confirm what is forbidden or hinder what is necessary.
46.0| Trajan to Pliny
46.1| Permits whose day has passed ought not to be in use. For that reason I impose on myself, among my first duties, to send new permits through all the provinces before they can be wanted.
47.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
47.1| When I wished, Sir, to look into the public debtors and the revenue and expenses at Apamea, I was answered that all indeed desired that the accounts of the colony be read by me, but that they had never been read by any of the proconsuls; that they had had a privilege, and a most ancient custom, of administering their commonwealth at their own discretion.
47.2| I required that what they said and what they recited be put in a petition; I have sent it to you exactly as I got it, although I realized that most of it does not bear on the matter in question.
47.3| I ask you to be so good as to lead the way for me as to what you think I ought to observe. For I fear that I may seem either to have overstepped or not to have fulfilled the parts of my duty.
48.0| Trajan to Pliny
48.1| The petition of the people of Apamea, which you had attached to your letter, relieved me of the necessity of weighing what sort of reasons they have for wishing it to appear that those who held this province as proconsuls abstained from inspecting their accounts, when they themselves did not refuse that you should inspect them.
48.2| Their honesty must therefore be rewarded, so that they may know even now that the inspection you are about to make you will carry out at my wish, with the privileges they hold left unharmed.
49.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
49.1| Sir, before I arrived, the Nicomedians had started to add a new forum to the old one; in a corner of it is an extremely old temple of the Great Mother, which must either be rebuilt or moved, chiefly because it lies much lower than the work that is just now rising.
49.2| When I inquired whether any law had been laid down for the temple, I learned that the custom of dedication is one here and another among us. Consider, therefore, Sir, whether you think a shrine for which no law has been laid down can be moved without harm to religion; otherwise it is most convenient, if religion does not stand in the way.
50.0| Trajan to Pliny
50.1| You can, my dearest Secundus, without anxiety on religious grounds, if the position of the place seems to require it, transfer the Mother of the Gods' temple to the more suitable one; and do not be troubled that no law of dedication is found, since the soil of a foreign community is not capable of the dedication that is made under our law.
51.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
51.1| It is difficult, Sir, to express in words how great a joy I have received, because you have granted both to me and to my wife's mother that you transfer her kinsman Caelius Clemens into this province.
51.2| From this I understand fully the measure of your kindness, since I experience so complete an indulgence, together with my whole household; to repay it in equal thanks I do not even dare, although I could do so to the utmost. And so I take refuge in vows, and I pray the gods that I may be thought not unworthy of what you continually bestow on me.
52.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
52.1| The day, Sir, on which you preserved the empire by taking it up, we celebrated with as much joy as you deserve, praying the gods to keep you safe and flourishing for the human race, whose protection and security rest on your well-being. We led our fellow soldiers in the oath in the solemn manner, while the provincials swore the same with a rivalry of devotion.
53.0| Trajan to Pliny
53.1| With how much reverence and joy my fellow soldiers, together with the provincials, with you leading, celebrated the day of my accession, I was glad to learn, my dearest Secundus, from your letter.
54.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
54.1| Public moneys, Sir, by your foresight and my service, have already been collected and are being collected; I fear they may lie idle. For there is either no opportunity or a very rare one for buying estates, and no one is found who will owe money to the commonwealth, especially at twelve asses, the rate at which they borrow from private persons.
54.2| Consider, therefore, Sir, whether you think the interest should be reduced, and by this means suitable debtors invited, and, if even so they are not found, the money distributed among the decurions, on condition that they give proper security to the commonwealth; which, even against their will and refusal, will be less bitter once a lighter interest is fixed.
55.0| Trajan to Pliny
55.1| I too see no other remedy, my dearest Secundus, than that the amount of interest be reduced, so that public moneys may be more easily placed. Its rate you will fix according to the supply of those who will borrow. To compel unwilling persons to accept, which perhaps will be idle for them, is not in keeping with the justice of our times.
56.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
56.1| I give you the greatest thanks, Sir, that in the midst of your very great occupations you have deigned to guide me also in the matters about which I consulted you; and I ask that you do so now as well.
56.2| For a certain man came to me and reported that his opponents, relegated for three years by Servilius Calvus, a most distinguished man, were staying in the province; they, conversely, declared that they had been restored by the same man, and recited an edict. For this reason I believed it necessary to refer the matter to you untouched.
56.3| For just as it is provided in your instructions that I am not to restore those relegated by another or by myself, so nothing is laid down about those whom another has both relegated and restored. Therefore you, Sir, had to be consulted as to what you wished me to observe, as much, by Hercules, as about those who, relegated for ever and not restored, are caught in the province.
56.4| For this kind of case also has come before my hearing. A man was brought to me who had been relegated for ever by the proconsul Julius Bassus. Since I knew that the acts of Bassus had been rescinded and a right granted by the senate to all about whom he had decided anything of bringing their case afresh, but only for two years, I asked this man whom he had relegated whether he had approached and informed the proconsul. He said no.
56.5| By this it came about that I consulted you, whether you thought he should be returned to his punishment or something more severe, and what above all should be decided both for him and for any who might happen to be found in a like condition. I have appended to this letter the decree of Calvus together with his edict, and likewise the decree of Bassus.
57.0| Trajan to Pliny
57.1| What is to be decided about the persons who were relegated for three years by the proconsul Publius Servilius Calvus and soon restored by his edict and remained in the province, I shall write back to you shortly, when I have required from Calvus the reasons for that act.
57.2| The man who was relegated for ever by Julius Bassus, having had for two years the opportunity of bringing his case, if he thinks he was relegated wrongly, and has not done so but has persisted in staying in the province, must be sent under chains to the prefects of my guard. For it is not enough that he be returned to the punishment which he has evaded by contumacy.
58.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
58.1| When I was summoning jurors, Sir, about to begin an assize, Flavius Archippus began to ask for exemption as a philosopher.
58.2| There were some who said he should not be freed from the necessity of serving as juror, but should be removed altogether from the list of jurors and handed back to the punishment which he had evaded by snapping his fetters.
58.3| The sentence of the proconsul Velius Paulus was recited, in which Archippus was shown to have been condemned to the mines on a charge of forgery; he produced nothing to show that he had been restored; he alleged, however, in support of restoration both a petition which he had given to Domitian, and letters of his bearing on his honour, and a decree of the people of Prusa. To these he added your letters written to him, and added also your father's edict and letter, by which he had confirmed the benefits granted by Domitian.
58.4| And so, although such charges were laid against the same man, I thought nothing should be decided until I consulted you on what seemed to me to be worthy of your ruling. What was read out on both sides I have attached to this letter. LETTER OF DOMITIAN TO TERENTIUS MAXIMUS
58.5| Flavius Archippus the philosopher has obtained from me that I should order a field of up to 100 to be bought for him near Prusias, his native place, from the yield of which he might support his household. I wish this to be provided for him. You will enter the sum spent to the account of my liberality. LETTER OF THE SAME TO LAPPIUS MAXIMUS
58.6| I would wish you, my dear Maximus, to hold as commended to you the philosopher Archippus, a good man, whose character also answers to his profession, and to show him your full kindness in whatever he shall modestly ask of you. EDICT OF THE DEIFIED NERVA
58.7| Certain things, Citizens, the very good fortune of the times proclaims of itself, and a good emperor is not to be waited for in matters where it is enough that he be understood, since even the unprompted conviction of my fellow citizens can assure itself of this: that I have preferred the security of all to my own repose, so that I might both confer new benefits and preserve those granted before me.
58.8| Yet lest anything bring hesitation to the public rejoicing, whether through the distrust of those who obtained benefits or through the memory of him who granted them, I have thought it both necessary and glad to send my indulgence to meet those who doubt.
58.9| I do not wish anyone to think that what he obtained under another emperor, whether privately or publicly, is rescinded by me, at least in order that he may owe it to me instead. Let them be valid and certain, and let no one's rejoicing need renewed petitions, upon whom the fortune of the empire has looked with a kindlier face. Let them allow me to be free for new benefits, and let them know that only what they do not have is to be asked for. LETTER OF THE SAME TO TULLIUS JUSTUS
58.10| Since the ordering of all matters, begun in earlier times and completed, is to be observed, the letters of Domitian also must be stood by.
59.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
59.1| Flavius Archippus, by your safety and your eternity, asks me to send you the petition which he gave me. This I thought should be granted to him on his asking, yet in such a way that I made it known to his accuser that I would send it; the petition received from her I have likewise attached to this letter, so that you may more easily, as though both parties had been heard, see what you think should be decided.
60.0| Trajan to Pliny
60.1| Domitian could indeed have been unaware in what condition Archippus stood when he wrote so many things bearing on his honour; but it is more in keeping with my nature to believe that his condition too was helped by the intervention of the emperor, especially since the honour of statues has so often been decreed to him by those who were not ignorant of what the proconsul Paulus had pronounced about him.
60.2| None of this, my dearest Secundus, tends to this, that if any new charge is brought against him, you should think he ought to be heard the less. I have read the petitions of the accuser Furia Prima, and likewise of Archippus himself, which you had attached to your second letter.
61.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
61.1| You indeed, Sir, with the greatest foresight fear that the lake, if joined to the river and so to the sea, may flow away; but I seem, on the spot, to have found how to meet this danger.
61.2| For the lake can be brought by a canal as far as the river and yet not be let out into the river, but be held and at once divided off by leaving as it were a bank. Thus we shall achieve that the lake is not robbed of its water by being joined to the river, and yet it will be just as though it were joined. For it will be easy, over that very short piece of land which will lie between, to transfer the loads brought by the canal into the river.
61.3| This will be done so, if necessity compels, and, I hope, it will not compel. For the lake itself is high enough, and now sends out a river in the opposite direction; this, shut off from there and turned to where we wish, will pour out without any harm to the lake as much water as it now carries. Besides, along the stretch through which the canal is to be dug, streams fall in; if these are carefully gathered, they will add to what the lake gives.
61.4| Indeed, if it please us to carry the canal farther and, cut deeper, to bring it level with the sea, and to discharge it into the sea itself rather than into the river, the rebound of the sea will hold back and check whatever comes from the lake. And if the nature of the place offered us none of these things, it would still be easy to regulate the course of the water by sluices.
61.5| But both these and other matters the leveller will search out and examine with far more skill, and you ought plainly, Sir, to send him, as you promise. For the matter is worthy of your greatness and care. Meanwhile, on your authority, I have written to Calpurnius Macer, a most distinguished man, asking him to send the most suitable leveller possible.
62.0| Trajan to Pliny
62.1| It is plain, my dearest Secundus, that neither prudence nor diligence has failed you about that lake, since you have provided for so many things, through which it will not run the risk of being drained and will be of more use to us. Choose, therefore, that which the matter itself especially recommends. I believe Calpurnius Macer will see that you are furnished with a leveller, nor are those provinces without such craftsmen.
63.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
63.1| Lycormas, your freedman, Sir, wrote to me that if any embassy came from the Bosporus bound for Rome, it should be held back until his own arrival. No embassy indeed has yet come, at least to the city in which I am myself, but a courier of King Sauromates has come, whom I, using the opportunity which chance had offered me, thought should be sent on with the courier who preceded Lycormas on his journey, so that you could learn from the letters of Lycormas and of the king alike what perhaps you ought to know alike.
64.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
64.1| King Sauromates has written to me that there are certain matters of which you should be informed with the least possible delay. For this reason I helped the haste of the courier whom he sent to you with letters, by a permit.
65.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
65.1| There is a question, Sir, great and bearing on the whole province, about the condition and maintenance of those whom they call nurslings.
65.2| On this question, having heard the rulings of emperors, because I found nothing either particular or general that applied to the Bithynians, I thought you should be consulted as to what you wished observed; nor did I think I could, in a matter that required your authority, be content with precedents.
65.3| Before me, however, was read an edict said to be of the deified Augustus, bearing on Andania; also read were letters of the deified Vespasian to the Lacedaemonians, and of the deified Titus to the same and to the Achaeans, and of Domitian to the proconsuls Avidius Tigrinus and Armenius Brocchus, and likewise to the Lacedaemonians; I did not send these to you, both because they seemed poorly corrected and some of doubtful authenticity, and because I believed that true and corrected copies were in your archives.
66.0| Trajan to Pliny
66.1| That question, which concerns those born free, exposed, then taken up by certain persons and brought up in slavery, has often been handled, and nothing is found in the records of those emperors who were before me that was laid down for all the provinces.
66.2| There are, to be sure, letters from Domitian to Avidius Nigrinus and to Armenius Brocchus, which perhaps should be followed; but among the provinces about which he wrote, Bithynia is not one; and so I think neither that the claim should be denied to those who will be vindicated into freedom on a ground of this kind, nor that freedom itself should be bought back at the price of maintenance.
67.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
67.1| Concerning the envoy of King Sauromates: when of his own accord he had stopped two days at Nicaea, where he had found me, I did not think, Sir, that a longer delay should be made, first because it remained unsettled when your freedman Lycormas was likely to arrive, then because I myself was setting out for another part of the province, the necessity of my duty so requiring.
67.2| I thought these things should be brought to your knowledge, because I had lately written that Lycormas had asked me to hold back an embassy, if any came from the Bosporus, until his own arrival. For doing this any longer no defensible reason occurred to me, especially since the letters of Lycormas, which I did not wish to hold back, as I said beforehand, seemed likely to precede the envoy from here by some days.
68.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
68.1| Certain persons asked that I permit them to move the remains of their dead, either because of the injury of age or because of the onrush of a river and other things like these, to wherever they wished, following the example of the proconsuls; since I knew that in our City the college of pontiffs is usually approached for a cause of this kind, I thought you, Sir, as Pontifex Maximus, should be consulted as to what you wish me to observe.
69.0| Trajan to Pliny
69.1| It is hard to impose on the provincials the necessity of approaching the pontiffs, if for some just reasons they wish to move the remains of their dead from one place to another. You ought, then, rather to follow the examples of those who have governed that province, and as each case is, so either permit or refuse.
70.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
70.1| As I was inquiring, Sir, where at Prusa the bath you have granted could be made, a site pleased me where once stood a house, as I hear, beautiful, now disfigured by ruins. For by this we shall achieve that the most unsightly face of the city is adorned, and also that the city itself is enlarged and no buildings are taken down, but those which have fallen in through age are opened out into something better.
70.2| The condition of this house is as follows. Claudius Polyaenus bequeathed it to Claudius Caesar and ordered that a temple be made to him in the peristyle, and the rest of the house be let. From it the city received income for some time; then gradually, partly plundered, partly neglected, the whole house collapsed along with the peristyle, and now almost nothing of it is left except the ground; and whether you, Sir, give it to the city or order it to be sold, the city will receive it as a very great gift, because of the convenience of the place.
70.3| I intend, if you permit, to place the bath on the empty area, and to enclose the place in which the buildings were with an exedra and porticoes and to dedicate it to you, by whose kindness an elegant work, worthy of your name, will be made.
70.4| I sent you a copy of the will, faulty though it is; from it you will learn that Polyaenus left many things for the adornment of the same house, which, like the house itself, have perished, but will be sought by me as far as possible.
71.0| Trajan to Pliny
71.1| We can use for the building of a bath, among the people of Prusa, that area with the fallen house, which you write is vacant. You have not, however, made clear enough whether a shrine was made in the peristyle to Claudius. For if it was made, though it has collapsed, its sanctity has taken hold of the ground.
72.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
72.1| When certain persons demanded that I myself should hear cases on the acknowledging of children and the restoring of birth-status, both according to the letter of Domitian written to Minicius Rufus and according to the examples of the proconsuls, I looked to a decree of the senate bearing on the same kinds of cases, which speaks only of those provinces over which proconsuls preside; and therefore I put off the matter untouched, until you, Sir, instruct me what you wish me to observe.
73.0| Trajan to Pliny
73.1| If you send me the senatorial decree that has caused you to hesitate, I shall judge whether you ought to hear cases on acknowledging children and restoring true birth-status.
74.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
74.1| Appuleius, Sir, a soldier on duty at Nicomedia, wrote to me that a certain man named Callidromus, when he was being detained by the bakers Maximus and Dionysius, to whom he had let out his labour, took refuge at your statue, and, brought before the magistrates, declared that he had once been a slave of Laberius Maximus, and, captured by Susagus in Moesia and sent by Decibalus as a present to Pacorus, king of Parthia, had been in his service for several years, then had fled, and so had come to Nicomedia.
74.2| When he was brought to me and had told the same story, I thought he should be sent to you; this I did a little late, while I searched for a gem which he declared had been taken from him, bearing an image of Pacorus and the ornaments with which he had been adorned.
74.3| For I wished to send this too, if it could be found, along with the small clod which I have sent, which he said he had brought from a Parthian mine. It is sealed with my ring, whose device is a four-horse chariot.
75.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
75.1| Julius Largus, Sir, from Pontus, not yet seen by me or even heard of—doubtless he trusted your judgment—entrusted to me a certain stewardship and service of his devotion toward you.
75.2| For he asked in his will that I should enter upon and accept his inheritance, and then, after taking out fifty thousand sesterces as a legacy, return all the rest to the communities of the Heracleotae and the Tiani, so that it should be at my discretion whether I thought works should be made which would be consecrated to your honour, or quinquennial games should be established, which would be called Trajan's. This I thought should be carried to your knowledge chiefly so that you might consider what I should choose.
76.0| Trajan to Pliny
76.1| Julius Largus chose your good faith as though he knew you well. What, therefore, will best serve the perpetuity of his memory, consider yourself, according to the condition of each place, and follow what you judge best.
77.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
77.1| You acted with the greatest foresight, Sir, in instructing Calpurnius Macer, a most distinguished man, to send a legionary centurion to Byzantium.
77.2| Consider whether you think the people of Juliopolis too should be provided for in a similar way; their community, though very small, bears very heavy burdens, and suffers injuries the more serious the weaker it is.
77.3| Whatever you grant to the Juliopolitans will also benefit the whole province. For they are at the head of Bithynia, and give passage to very many who travel through it.
78.0| Trajan to Pliny
78.1| Such is the condition of the community of Byzantium, with a crowd of travellers streaming into it from every side, that, following the custom of earlier times, we have had to see to its offices by the protection of a legionary centurion. If
78.2| we think that the people of Juliopolis should be helped in the same way, we shall burden ourselves by precedent; for more will ask the same, the weaker they are. I have such trust in your diligence that I believe you will by every means act so that they are not exposed to injuries.
78.3| If any, however, behave contrary to my discipline, let them be checked at once; or, if they have committed more than can be adequately punished on the spot, then, if they are soldiers, you will make known what you have found to their commanders, or, if they are going to come toward the City, you will write to me.
79.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
79.1| It is provided, Sir, by the Pompeian law which was given to the Bithynians, that no one is to hold a magistracy or be in the senate under thirty years of age. By the same law it is laid down that those who have held a magistracy are to be in the senate.
79.2| There followed then an edict of the deified Augustus, in which he permitted lesser magistracies to be held from the age of twenty-two.
79.3| The question is therefore whether a man who has held a magistracy under thirty years of age can be enrolled in the senate by the censors, and, if he can, whether those also who have not held one can, by the same interpretation, be chosen senators from the age from which they are allowed to hold a magistracy; which otherwise is said to have been done hitherto and to be necessary, because it is rather better that the sons of honourable men be admitted into the council chamber than those from the common people.
79.4| I, asked by the censors designate what I thought, judged that those indeed who had held a magistracy under thirty years of age could be chosen into the senate both by the edict of Augustus and by the Pompeian law, since Augustus had permitted magistracies to be held under thirty years, and the law had wished that he be a senator who had held a magistracy.
79.5| But about those who had not held one, although they were of the same age as those to whom it was permitted to hold one, I hesitated; whence it came about that I consulted you, Sir, as to what you wished observed. I have attached to this letter the chapters of the law, and then the edict of Augustus.
80.0| Trajan to Pliny
80.1| I think the same as your interpretation, my dearest Secundus: that the Pompeian law was renewed by the edict of the deified Augustus only so far that those not under twenty-two years could hold a magistracy, and that those who had held one came into the senate of their own community. But I do not think that those under thirty who have not held a magistracy, merely because they can hold one, can be chosen into the council chamber of any place.
81.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
81.1| When I was at Prusa near Olympus, Sir, occupied with public business inside my lodging, about to go out the same day, the magistrate Asclepiades reported that I had been appealed to by Claudius Eumolpus. When Cocceianus Dion wished a work, whose charge he had undertaken, to be handed over to the community in the council, then Eumolpus, appearing for Flavius Archippus, said that Dion must render an account of the work before it was made over to the commonwealth, because he had done otherwise than he ought.
81.2| He added also that your statue was placed in the same building, and the bodies of the buried, Dion's wife and son, and he demanded that I hear the case from the tribunal.
81.3| When I replied that I would do so at once and would postpone my departure, he asked that I give a longer day for preparing the case and that I hear it in another city.
81.4| I answered that I would hear it at Nicaea. When I had taken my seat there to hear it, the same Eumolpus, as though still insufficiently prepared, began to ask for an adjournment; Dion, on the contrary, demanded that he be heard.
81.5| Much was said on both sides, even on the substance of the case. I, thinking that an adjournment should be granted and that you should be consulted in a matter bearing on precedent, told each party to give in written statements of their demands. For I wished you to learn what had been put forward chiefly in their own words.
81.6| Dion indeed said he would give his. Eumolpus replied that he would include in his statement what he demanded for the commonwealth, but that as to the buried, he was not an accuser but the advocate of Flavius Archippus, whose instructions he had conveyed. Archippus, for whom Eumolpus had been appearing at Prusa, said he would give a statement. But neither Eumolpus nor Archippus, although awaited for very many days, has yet given me statements; Dion gave his, which I have attached to this letter.
81.7| I was myself on the spot and saw that your statue also has been placed in the library, while the place in which Dion's son and wife are said to be buried is situated in an open court, which is enclosed by porticoes.
81.8| I ask you, Sir, to be good enough to guide me in this kind of hearing in particular, since otherwise expectation is great, as it must be in a matter which both has come to open admission and is defended by precedents.
82.0| Trajan to Pliny
82.1| You could have felt no hesitation, my dearest Secundus, over the matter on which you thought I should be consulted, since you knew my purpose very well, that reverence for my name is not to be won by the fear or terror of men, or by charges of treason.
82.2| Let that question therefore be dropped, which I would not admit even if it were supported by precedents, and let the account of the whole work completed under the charge of Cocceianus Dion be examined, since the interest of the community demands it and Dion neither refuses nor ought to refuse.
83.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
83.1| Asked, Sir, by the people of Nicaea in their public capacity, by the things that are, and should be, most sacred to me, that is, by your eternity and safety, to carry their petitions to you, I thought it wrong to refuse, and have attached to this letter the petition received from them.
84.0| Trajan to Pliny
84.1| For the people of Nicaea, who affirm that the claiming of the property of their citizens who die intestate was granted by the deified Augustus, you will have to give a hearing, bringing together all the persons concerned in the same matter, and calling in as advisers Virdius Gemellinus and my freedman Epimachus, procurators, so that, having weighed also the things said against it, you may decide what you believe best.
85.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
85.1| Maximus, your freedman and procurator, Sir, throughout all the time that we were together I found upright, industrious and diligent, and as most devoted to your affairs so most steadfast in discipline; I gladly follow him with my testimony before you, in the good faith which I owe you.
86A.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
86A.1| Gavius Bassus, Sir, prefect of the Pontic shore, upright, honest, industrious, and in all this most respectful to me, as I have found, I follow with my wish and my support alike, in the good faith which I owe you.
86B.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
86B.1| [….] than the things he hopes for, equipped by service with you, to whose discipline he owes it that he is worthy of your indulgence. With me both soldiers and civilians, by whom his justice and kindness have been thoroughly observed, have vied in giving him testimony, both private and public. This I bring to your knowledge, in the good faith which I owe you.
87.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
87.1| Nymphidius Lupus, Sir, a former chief centurion, I had as a fellow soldier when I myself was a tribune and he a prefect: from then I began to love him as a friend. Our affection afterwards grew by the long standing of our mutual friendship.
87.2| And so I laid my hand upon his repose and required that he equip me with his counsel in Bithynia. This he, with the greatest friendship, putting aside regard for his leisure and his old age, has already done and will do.
87.3| For these reasons I count his kinsmen among my own, his son above all, Nymphidius Lupus, an upright, industrious young man, most worthy of his excellent father, who will prove equal to your indulgence, as you can learn from his first trials, since as a cohort prefect he earned the fullest testimony of Julius Ferox and Fuscus Salinator, most distinguished men. You will crown my joy, Sir, and my gratification by honouring the son.
88.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
88.1| I wish, Sir, that you may spend this birthday, and very many others, as happily as possible, and that the glory of your virtue, flourishing in everlasting praise [….] safe and strong, you will increase by one work upon another.
89.0| Trajan to Pliny
89.1| I acknowledge your vows, my dearest Secundus, in which you pray that I may spend very many and very happy birthdays with the state of our commonwealth flourishing.
90.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
90.1| Sir, the people of Sinope lack water; it seems that it can be brought, both good and plentiful, from the sixteenth milestone. Yet right at the source, a little more than a thousand paces along, there is a suspect and soft place, which I have meanwhile ordered to be explored at modest cost, to see whether it can receive and bear the work.
90.2| Money, with our attention, will be raised and will not be lacking, if you, Sir, will favour this kind of work, for the health and the pleasantness of a colony that is very thirsty.
91.0| Trajan to Pliny
91.1| Go on as you have begun, my dearest Secundus, and investigate carefully whether the site you suspect can carry the structure of an aqueduct. I do not think there should be any doubt that water ought to be brought to the colony of Sinope, provided it can also manage the work with its own resources, since the project will contribute a great deal both to its health and to its pleasure.
92.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
92.1| The free and federated city of Amisus enjoys its own laws by the favor of your indulgence. In this city I was handed a petition concerning benefit societies, which I have attached to this letter, so that you, Sir, might decide what should be permitted or forbidden, and how far.
93.0| Trajan to Pliny
93.1| As for the people of Amisus, whose petition you enclosed with your letter: if their laws, which they enjoy by the favor of their treaty, allow them to have a benefit society, we can refrain from preventing them from having one, all the more readily if they use such contributions not for riots and unlawful gatherings but to relieve the want of the poorer members. In the other cities, which are bound by our law, a thing of this kind must be forbidden.
94.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
94.1| Suetonius Tranquillus is a man of the highest integrity, honor and learning. I have long admired his character and his studies, Sir, and took him into my household some time ago, and the more closely I have come to know him now, the more I have grown to love him.
94.2| Two reasons make the right of three children necessary for him: he has earned the good opinion of his friends, and his marriage has not been a fortunate one, so he must obtain from your kindness, through me, what the spite of fortune has denied him.
94.3| I know, Sir, how great a favor I am asking, but I am asking it of you, whose indulgence I experience in all my wishes. And you can gather how much I want this, since I would not ask it while away from you if I wanted it only moderately.
95.0| Trajan to Pliny
95.1| You certainly remember, my dearest Secundus, how sparingly I grant favors of this kind, since I am accustomed to assert even in the senate that I have not gone beyond the number I told that most distinguished order would be enough for me. Nevertheless I have granted your wish, and I have ordered it to be entered in my records that I have given Suetonius Tranquillus the right of three children on the terms I usually set.
96.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
96.1| It is my practice, Sir, to refer to you everything about which I am in doubt. For who can better guide my hesitation or instruct my ignorance? I have never taken part in investigations of Christians, and so I do not know what is usually punished, or investigated, or to what extent.
96.2| And I have been in no small doubt whether any distinction should be made for age, or whether those who are quite young should be treated no differently from the more mature; whether pardon should be given for repentance, or whether someone who has once been a Christian gains nothing by having ceased to be one; whether it is the name itself, even if free of crimes, or the crimes attached to the name that are punished. Meanwhile, with those who were reported to me as Christians, I have followed this procedure.
96.3| I asked them in person whether they were Christians. Those who confessed I asked a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered to be led away. For I had no doubt that, whatever it was they were confessing, their stubbornness and unbending obstinacy surely ought to be punished.
96.4| There were others possessed by a similar madness whom, because they were Roman citizens, I have noted down to be sent to Rome. Soon, as usually happens, the charge spread through the very handling of the matter, and more varieties of case turned up.
96.5| An anonymous pamphlet was posted containing the names of many people. People who said they were not, and never had been, Christians, when they called upon the gods after me, repeating the words I dictated, and made offerings of incense and wine to your image, which I had commanded to be brought for this very purpose along with the statues of the gods, and who moreover cursed Christ, none of which those who are really Christians are said to be able to be forced to do, I thought should be let go.
96.6| Others, named by the informer, said that they were Christians and then soon denied it; they had been, they said, but had stopped, some three years before, some many years before, a few even twenty years before. All of these too both venerated your image and the statues of the gods and cursed Christ.
96.7| They maintained, however, that the whole of their guilt, or of their error, had been this: that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and to sing a song to Christ as though to a god, taking turns among themselves, and to pledge themselves by an oath — not to some crime, but to commit no theft, no robbery, no adultery, to keep faith, and not to refuse a deposit when asked to return it. When this was done, it had been their custom to disperse and to come together again to take food, but food of an ordinary and harmless kind; and even this they had stopped doing after my edict, by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political clubs.
96.8| This made me think it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was, even under torture, from two slave women who were called deaconesses. What I found was nothing but a perverse superstition, and an immoderate one.
96.9| So I put off the hearing and have hurried to ask your advice, since I judged the matter worth consulting you on, above all because of the number of people in danger. Many people of every age, of every rank, and of both sexes are being brought into danger and will continue to be. Nor has the contagion of this superstition spread through the cities only, but through the villages and the countryside as well; yet it appears that it can be halted and put right.
96.10| It is certainly well established that the temples, once nearly deserted, have begun to be thronged again, that the solemn rites long interrupted are being resumed, and that the meat of sacrificial victims, for which until recently a buyer was very rarely found, is on sale everywhere. From this it is easy to suppose what a multitude of people could be reformed if there were room for repentance.
97.0| Trajan to Pliny
97.1| You have followed the procedure you ought to have followed, my Secundus, in examining the cases of those who had been reported to you as Christians. For no general rule can be laid down that would have, as it were, a fixed form.
97.2| No search is to be made for them; if they are reported and proved guilty, they are to be punished, but on this condition: whoever says he is not a Christian and proves it by his actual conduct, that is, by worshipping our gods, shall obtain pardon through repentance, however suspect he may have been in the past. Anonymous pamphlets that are posted, however, ought to have no place in any accusation. For they set the worst of precedents and are not in keeping with our age.
98.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
98.1| Sir, the city of Amastris, elegant and well adorned alike, has among its chief works a very beautiful and also very long street. Along one side of it, for its whole length, there runs what is called a river but is in fact a most foul sewer, as disgusting in its utterly filthy appearance as it is pestilential in its most revolting smell.
98.2| For these reasons it concerns health no less than appearance that it be covered; which will happen if you allow it, and I will see to it that money is not lacking for a work as great as it is necessary.
99.0| Trajan to Pliny
99.1| It is reasonable, my dearest Secundus, that the water which flows through the city of Amastris be covered, if uncovered it harms health. That money is not lacking for this work you will see to, I am certain, with your usual diligence.
100.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
100.1| We have eagerly and joyfully fulfilled, Sir, the vows pronounced last year, and we have taken new ones, the soldiers and the provincials vying with one another in devotion, praying the gods to keep you and the commonwealth flourishing and safe with that kindness which, besides your many great virtues, you have earned by your exceptional piety, your obedience to the gods and the honor you pay them.
101.0| Trajan to Pliny
101.1| I was glad to learn from your letter, my dearest Secundus, that the soldiers together with the provincials, with you leading them in the words, have with the most joyful agreement fulfilled their vows to the immortal gods for my safety and have pronounced them for the future.
102.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
102.1| We have celebrated with due religious observance the day on which the guardianship of the human race was transferred to you by a most happy succession, commending both our public vows and our rejoicing to the gods who are the authors of your rule.
103.0| Trajan to Pliny
103.1| I learned with pleasure from your letter that the day of my accession was celebrated with due rejoicing and religious observance by the soldiers and provincials, with you leading them in the words.
104.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
104.1| Valerius Paulinus, Sir, has left me the rights over his Latin freedmen, with the exception of Paulinus; of these I ask you for the present to give full Roman citizenship to three. For I fear it would be excessive to call on your indulgence for all of them at once, since I ought to use it the more modestly the more fully I experience it. Those for whom I ask are Gaius Valerius Astraeus, Gaius Valerius Dionysius and Gaius Valerius Aper.
105.0| Trajan to Pliny
105.1| Since you wish, most honorably, to provide promptly through me for those whom Valerius Paulinus entrusted to your good faith, I have meanwhile ordered it to be entered in my records that I have given full Roman citizenship to those for whom you have now asked, and I shall do likewise in the remaining cases for which you may ask.
106.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
106.1| I was asked, Sir, by Publius Accius Aquila, a centurion of the sixth mounted cohort, to send you a petition in which he begs your indulgence regarding his daughter's status. I thought it harsh to refuse, since I knew how much patience and kindness you usually show to soldiers' requests.
107.0| Trajan to Pliny
107.1| I have read the petition of Publius Accius Aquila, centurion of the sixth mounted cohort, which you sent me; moved by his requests, I have given his daughter Roman citizenship. I have sent you the petition with my reply, for you to give back to him.
108.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
108.1| I ask you, Sir, to write back and tell me what rights you wish the cities of both Bithynia and Pontus to have in recovering money owed to them from leases, from sales, or for other reasons. I have found that most proconsuls granted them the right of first claim, and that this has held as if it were law.
108.2| I think, however, that your foresight should establish and confirm some rule by which their interests may be provided for permanently. For the arrangements those men made, however wisely they were granted, are short-lived and weak unless your authority attaches to them.
109.0| Trajan to Pliny
109.1| What right the cities of Bithynia or Pontus ought to have regarding money owed to the city on any account must be determined from the law of each one. For if they have a privilege by which they are ranked ahead of other creditors, it must be preserved; if they do not have one, it will not be right for me to grant it to the injury of private persons.
110.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
110.1| The public advocate of the city of Amisus, Sir, was suing Julius Piso before me for about forty thousand denarii given to him from public funds twenty years earlier, with the council and the assembly agreeing, and he relied on your instructions, which forbid gifts of this kind.
110.2| Piso, on the other hand, said that he had contributed a great deal to the city and had spent almost his entire fortune. He also cited the length of time that had passed, and asked that he not be forced to pay back, to the ruin of what remained of his standing, what he had received long ago in return for many services. For these reasons I thought the whole hearing should be postponed so that I could consult you, Sir, on what course you think should be followed.
111.0| Trajan to Pliny
111.1| Although my instructions forbid grants from public funds, still, so that the security of many people is not undermined, grants made some considerable time ago ought not to be reopened and claimed back as void. Whatever was done in this matter twenty years ago, therefore, let us leave alone. For I wish to provide for the people of every place no less than for public funds.
112.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
112.1| The Pompeian Law, Sir, which the peoples of Bithynia and Pontus follow, does not require those who are enrolled in the council by the censors to pay money; but those whom your indulgence has allowed certain cities to add above the legal number have paid in one thousand or two thousand denarii each.
112.2| Then Anicius Maximus, when proconsul, ordered that those enrolled by the censors should also pay something, though only in a very few cities, and different amounts in different cities.
112.3| It remains, then, for you yourself to decide whether in all the cities everyone who is enrolled as a councillor from now on ought to pay a fixed sum for admission. For what is to remain in force permanently should properly be established by you, whose deeds and words are owed eternity.
113.0| Trajan to Pliny
113.1| Whether everyone who becomes a decurion in each city of Bithynia ought to pay a fee for the office of decurion or not cannot be laid down by me as a general rule. I think, therefore, that the law of each city should be followed, which is always the safest course; but as for those who become decurions by invitation, I believe they will in fact see to it that by their payment they are preferred to the rest.
114.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
114.1| By the Pompeian Law, Sir, the cities of Bithynia are permitted to enroll as their citizens anyone they wish, provided he is not a citizen of any of the cities in Bithynia. The same law lays down the grounds on which men are to be expelled from the senate by the censors.
114.2| Some of the censors therefore thought they should consult me on whether they ought to expel a man who was a citizen of another city.
114.3| The law, while it forbade the enrolling of a citizen of another city, did not order anyone to be expelled from the senate for this reason; besides, I was told for certain that in every city there are very many councillors from other cities, and that many people and many cities would be thrown into confusion by that part of the law, which had long since fallen out of use by a kind of general consent. For these reasons I thought it necessary to consult you about what you think should be observed. I have attached the relevant clauses of the law to this letter.
115.0| Trajan to Pliny
115.1| You had good reason to hesitate, my dearest Secundus, about what reply you ought to give the censors when they asked whether men who were citizens of other cities, though of the same province, ought to remain in the senate. For both the authority of the law and the long custom that has prevailed against the law could have pulled you in opposite directions. I have decided on this compromise: that we make no change regarding the past, but that citizens of any city whatever who have been admitted remain, even though it was against the law, while for the future the Pompeian Law is to be observed. If we wished to enforce its force retroactively as well, a great deal would inevitably be thrown into confusion.
116.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
116.1| Those who assume the toga of manhood, or celebrate a wedding, or enter on a magistracy, or dedicate a public building, usually invite the whole council and also no small number of the common people, and give them two denarii or one denarius each. I ask you to write and tell me whether you think this should be allowed, and to what extent.
116.2| For my part, while I think the right to issue such invitations should be granted, especially on ceremonial occasions, I fear that men who invite a thousand guests, and sometimes more, may seem to exceed due measure and to fall into what looks like a public dole.
117.0| Trajan to Pliny
117.1| You are right to fear that an invitation may turn into what looks like a public dole when it exceeds due measure in numbers and brings people together for the customary handouts by whole bodies, as it were, rather than individually through personal acquaintance. But I chose your good judgment precisely so that you yourself might regulate the shaping of that province's ways and establish whatever would contribute to its lasting peace.
118.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
118.1| The athletes, Sir, think that the allowances you have established for the iselastic games are owed to them from the very day on which they were crowned; for what matters, they say, is not when they rode in triumph into their native city, but when they won the contest that entitles them to ride in. I, on the other hand, write that the very name 'iselastic' makes me strongly doubt whether the time to be considered is not rather that at which they rode in.
118.2| The same men are claiming allowances for a contest that you made iselastic, even though they won before it was made so. For they say it is only consistent that, just as they are not paid for those contests which ceased to be iselastic after they had won them, so they should be paid for those which began to be iselastic.
118.3| Here too I am in no small doubt, for fear that account might be taken of anyone retroactively and that what was not owed at the time of the victory might be paid. I ask you, therefore, to be so good as to resolve my doubt, that is, to interpret your own benefactions.
119.0| Trajan to Pliny
119.1| The iselastic allowance seems to me to become due only from the moment when a man has himself ridden into his own city. The allowances for those contests that I have decided to make iselastic are not owed retroactively if they were not iselastic before. Nor can it help the athletes' claim that they have ceased to receive allowances for those contests which I later decided were not iselastic, after they had won them. For although the status of the contests has changed, what they had received before is nonetheless not taken back.
120.0| Pliny to the Emperor Trajan
120.1| Up to this time, Sir, I have neither lent travel passes to anyone nor sent them out on any business but yours. A certain necessity has broken this unbroken practice of mine.
120.2| When my wife heard of her grandfather's death and wanted to hurry to her aunt, I thought it harsh to refuse her the use of them, since the value of such a duty lies in its speed, and I knew you would approve the reason for a journey whose cause was family devotion. I have written this to you because I felt I would be insufficiently grateful if I concealed the fact that, among your other benefactions, I owe this one too to your indulgence: that, trusting in it, I did not hesitate to act as though I had consulted you, since if I had consulted you, I would have acted too late.
121.0| Trajan to Pliny
121.1| You were right, my dearest Secundus, to trust my feelings, and there would have been no need for doubt if you had waited to consult me about whether your wife's journey should be helped by the passes I gave you for your official duties, since your wife was bound to increase the welcome of her arrival at her aunt's by its speed as well.
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