I beg you to believe (as was said at the beginning) that I have written all this by way of reminder and not of instruction. And yet, after all, by way of instruction too. I am not afraid, forsooth, of having exceeded the limits of affection; nor, seeing that affection should be so strong, is there any danger of its being excessive.
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BOOK IX.
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1. — TO MAXIMUS.
I HAVE often recommended you to issue with all speed the productions you have composed whether, in your own defence, or against Plauta — or rather both in your own defence and against him, for so the occasion required — and now, especially, having heard of his death, I strongly urge, as well as recommend you, to the same effect. For, although you have read them and given them to read to many, yet I would not have any person whatever suppose that you have begun only after his decease what in fact you had completed in his life-time. Let your reputation for intrepidity be intact. And so it will be, if it be known to friends and foes that it was not merely after your enemy’s death that the courage to write was born in you, but that you were quite ready for publication and were only forestalled by his death. At the same time you will avoid the reproach
“Unjust are all the insults o’er the dead.” (Homer, Odyssey xxii. 412. —
For that which has been written and read aloud on the subject of a living person, if published, even after his decease, is published, as it were, against a person still living, provided this be done at once. Consequently, if you have anything else in hand, lay it aside for the time. Put the finishing touch to this work, which to me, who have read it formerly, seems long since complete; however, let it now seem so to you too, since not only does the matter itself require no delay on your part, but a consideration of the particular juncture should cut all delay short.
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2. — TO SABINUS.
You are very obliging in pressing me not only for frequent letters, but for very long ones into the bargain. I have been somewhat chary in this matter, partly from a regard for your avocations, partly from my having been myself much engrossed by matters, in general of small interest, which, however, at the same time distract and weary the attention. Besides, I had no materials for writing more. Nor, indeed, is my situation the same as that of M. Tullius, whose example you invite me to follow. For not merely was he gifted with a most prolific genius, but events in great variety and of great importance supplied that genius with abundant material. How narrow are the limits in which I am enclosed, you well know, without my telling you, unless haply I should wish to send you letters of the school-exercise kind, and from the shade of the closet, if I may so express it. But nothing, to my mind, could be less apposite, when I think of your arms, your camps, in fine, your horns and trumpets and sweat and dust and burning suns.
You are now furnished, as I think, with a reasonable excuse, and yet I am not sure that I should wish it to be approved by you. For it is a sign of the highest affection to refuse to make allowance for the shortness of one’s friends’ letters, even although one may know that it can be satisfactorily accounted for.
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3. — TO PAULINUS.
Different men have different ideas on the subject, but I for my part deem that individual the most fortunate who enjoys to the full the foretaste of a noble and enduring fame, and, assured of posthumous reputation, lives in the company of his future glory. And, for me indeed, if the prize of immortality were not before my eyes, the usual snug and sound repose would be my choice. For I suppose it is the duty of all men to think of themselves as either immortal or mortal; in the former case, certainly, to contend and to exert themselves; in the latter, to keep quiet, to repose themselves, and not to fatigue their short existence by fleeting efforts; as I see many do, who, by a wretched and at the same time thankless appearance of activity, only attain in the end to a contempt for themselves. All this, which I say daily to myself, I now say to you, that I may leave off saying it to myself, if you dissent; though to be sure you, in your character of one who is always meditating some great and immortal work, will not dissent.
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4. — TO MACRINUS.
I should be afraid you would think the oration, which you will receive with this letter, of immoderate length, if it were not of such a kind as to seem to have many beginnings and many endings. For under each separate charge is contained as it were a separate cause. So, at whatever point you begin, or at whatever place you leave off, you will be able to read what next follows both in the light of a new commencement and a connected sequel, and so to pronounce me, if extremely long as to the whole, yet extremely short as to the separate parts.
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5. — TO TIRO.
You are acting admirably (I have been enquiring about you, as you see), and pray persevere, in commending your love of justice to the provincials by much kindly consideration; the chief part of which consists in surrounding with your regard all the most respectable citizens, and being so loved by the smaller folk that you may at the same time be approved by the leading people. For many, while they are apprehensive of seeming to give in too much to the interest of the powerful, obtain a reputation for ill-breeding, and even for ill-nature. Of this fault you have kept yourself well clear; I know it. Nevertheless I cannot refrain from bestowing praise on you, under the guise of advice, for maintaining a due mean, so as to preserve the distinctions of ranks and dignities; for, if these are confounded, disordered, and intermingled, nothing can be more unequal than this very equality.
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6. — TO CALVISIUS.
I have been passing all this time between my writing-tablets and my books in the most delicious calm. “However,” you ask, “have you been able to do this in town?” The Circensian games were on, — a species of exhibition which does not attract me even in the faintest degree. There is no novelty, no variety about them, nothing which one is not satisfied with having seen once only. This makes me all the more astonished that so many thousands of persons should have such a childish desire to see, over and over again, horses running, and men standing in chariots. If, at least, they were attracted by the speed of the horses or the skill of the men, there would be some reason in the thing. As it is, it is a bit of cloth that they applaud, a bit of cloth that they love, and if during the race itself and in the very heat of the contest such and such colours were to change wearers, the favour and applause of the public would change over with them, and the very drivers, the very horses whom they know from afar and whose names they shout out, would all at once be deserted. Such is the influence, such the importance, of a contemptible jacket! I say nothing of the vulgar, itself more contemptible than the jacket; but such is the case with certain persons of standing. When I remember that these can settle down so insatiably to what is so inane, insipid, and tedious, I take some pleasure in the fact that I am not taken by this pleasure. So, I employ in literature my idle hours, throughout these days which others waste in the idlest of occupations.
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7. — TO ROMANUS.
You write that you are engaged in building. ’Tis well.
I have found my defence; for I build with reason the moment that I do so in your company. Indeed there is this further resemblance between us, that you are building by the sea-side, and I by the Larian Lake. There are several villas of mine on the shore of this lake, but two of them, while they greatly delight me, exercise me in an equal degree. One of them, placed on the rocks, after the fashion of Baiæ, overlooks the lake; another, similarly after the fashion of Baiæ, is at the edge of the lake. Hence I am in the habit of calling the former “Tragedy,” and the latter “Comedy,” because one is supported as it were by a high
buskin, and the other by a low sock. Each of them has its special charm, which their very diversity renders more agreeable to the possessor of both.
One enjoys a nearer, the other a more extended view of the lake; one, with a gentle curve, embraces a small bay, the other, situated on a lofty crag, separates two small bays from each other; there a promenade stretches for a long way, in a straight line, along the shore, here it gently curves in the shape of a spacious terrace-walk; one of them does not feel the waves, and the other breaks them. From the former you can look down on the people fishing, from the latter you can fish yourself, and throw your line from your room, and actually from your sofa almost, just as from a skiff. These are my reasons for adding to each what is wanting, in view of the superabundant advantages already enjoyed by both. But why enter into reasons with you? It will stand for a good reason with you that you are doing the same thing.
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8. — TO AUGURINUS.
If, after you have praised me, I shall begin to praise you, I am apprehensive of seeming to be repaying a favour rather than proffering a judgment. Yet, though it should seem so, I esteem all your writings to be admirable; chiefly, however, those which are about me. This happens owing to one and the same cause; for not only do you write exceedingly well on the subject of your friends, but I too, as I read, find what is written on the subject of myself exceedingly good.
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9. — TO COLONUS.
I particularly applaud you for being so grievously affected by the death of Pomponius Quintianus, that you prolong your regard for the lost one by means of your regrets; not like so many who care only for the living, or rather pretend to care for them, and indeed do not even pretend, except in the case of those whom they see to be prosperous. For they forget the unfortunate, no less than if they were dead. But your faithfulness is unfailing, and your constancy in love such that it can be ended only by your death. And, by Hercules, Quintianus was a man who ought to be cherished on the strength of his own example. He loved the successful, defended the wretched, mourned for the lost. What nobility in his mien to start with! What deliberation in his speech! How evenly balanced his severity and his playfulness! What his love for letters! What his judgment! How dutifully did he live with a father most unlike himself! How the fact of his being the best of sons was no hindrance to his seeming the best of men! But why do I aggravate your grief? Yet you so loved the young man that you would rather have this, than that silence should be kept about him, particularly by me, by whose commendation you think that his life may be illustrated, his memory prolonged, and that very youth, from which he has been snatched, restored to him.
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10. — TO TACITUS.
I am desirous of obeying your precepts, yet such is the scarcity of wild boars that Minerva and Diana (who, according to you, should be worshipped in company) can - cannot be brought together. So Minerva alone must be served; gingerly, however, in a manner suitable to retirement and the summer-time. On my road I worked out a few things — unmistakeable trifles that deserve to be at once blotted out — with the kind of garrulity with which talk is scattered about in carriages. I have made some additions to them at my country house, as I did not choose to write anything else. Hence my poetry — which you think can be most suitably turned out among groves and woods — is dormant. I have retouched one and another of my small orations. Yet this kind of work is ungrateful and displeasing, and resembles rather the labours than the pleasures of the country.
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11. — TO GEMINUS.
I have received yours, which has been most agreeable to me, and especially so from your wishing something to be addressed to you such as might be inserted in the Books of Letters. Material for this will turn up; either precisely that which you indicate, or in preference something else; for in the case of the former there are several objections. Cast your eyes round, and they will occur to you. I did not think there were booksellers at Lyons, and was all the more pleased to learn from your letter that my works have a ready sale there. I am rejoiced that such favour as they have acquired in town, continues to attend them abroad. Indeed, I begin to think that my productions must be tolerably finished, when, in regions so diverse, the judgments of men so widely separated from each other are yet in harmony about them.
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12. — TO JUNIOR.
A certain person was chiding his son for being somewhat too extravagant in his purchases of horses and dogs. Said I to him, when the young man had left us, “Harkee!” have you never done what might have been rebuked by your father? Have done, do I say? Do you not sometimes do that which your son, if he were suddenly turned into your father and you into his son, might reprehend with the like severity? Are not all men led by some error or other? Does not one man indulge himself in one respect, and another in another?” Admonished by this example of excessive severity, I have, in accordance with our mutual affection, thus written to you, lest you too should at any time treat your son too sharply and rudely. Reflect, not only that he is a boy, but that you have been one, and so use this your position of father as to remember that you are both a man and the father of a man.
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13. — TO QUADRATUS.
In proportion to the interest and attention with which you have read the books composed by me, on the subject of the vindication of Helvidius, is the eagerness of your demand that I should write to you in detail on such matters as are not contained in the books, and on such as bear reference to them, in short, as to the whole process of an affair which you were too young to be personally interested in.
After Domitian had been put to death, I deliberated within myself, and resolved that here was a great and noble opportunity for pursuing the guilty, vindicating the unfortunate, and bringing one’s self into notice. Further, among the numerous crimes of numerous people, none seemed more atrocious than that, in the Senate, a Senator should have laid hands on a Senator, a man of prætorian on a man of consular rank, a judge on an accused person. Independently of this, there was a friendship between myself and Helvidius as intimate as there could be with one who, through dread of the times, hid in seclusion his great name, and the great qualities which matched it. I was a friend, too, of Arria and Fannia, one of whom was Helvidius’s stepmother, and the other that stepmother’s parent. But I was not so much incited by private obligations as by public justice, by the disgraceful character of the deed, by a consideration of the example to be made.
Accordingly, during the first few days of restored liberty, every one on his own account had been at once impeaching and crushing his own private enemies (at least the smaller ones) with a confused and turbulent clamour. I, for my part, deemed it a more temperate and also a more courageous course to attack a monstrous criminal, not by means of the popular resentment of the day, but by means of his own individual crime. So, as soon as that first impulse had sufficiently cooled down, and fury growing daily feebler had come back to a sense of justice — though I was at that time particularly sad, having lately lost my wife — I sent to Anteia, the widow of Helvidius, and asked her to come to me, since my still recent bereavement kept me within doors. On her arrival, “It has been decided,” said I, “by me, not to suffer your husband to remain unavenged. Announce this to Arria and Fannia” (they had returned from exile). “Consult yourself, consult them, as to whether you wish to participate in an action in which I need no associate; yet I am not so solicitous about my own glory as to grudge you a share in it.” Anteia conveyed the message, and the ladies did not hesitate. The Senate, very opportunely, was to meet within three days.
Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Younger (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) Page 29