I always referred everything to Corellius, knowing him for the most far-seeing and wisest man of our time. On this occasion, however, I was content with my own counsel, fearing that he would put his veto on it for he was inclined to hesitation and caution. But I could not prevail on myself to refrain from intimating to him, the same day, what I was about to do in a matter about which I was not deliberating, having learnt by experience that, where you have made up your mind, it is best not to seek advice from those whose advice you would be bound to obey.
I attended the Senate, begged leave to speak, and spoke for a short time with the greatest approval. When I began to touch on the charge, and to hint at a person to be charged (yet still without naming him), there came reclamations from all sides. Said one, “Let us know who it is that you are accusing out of order!” Another, “Who can be charged before being put in accusation by the Senate?” A third, “Spare us who survive!” I heard them without perturbance or dismay; such strength lies in the goodness of one’s cause; and so great a difference does it make in the way of giving you confidence or frightening you, whether people do not like what you are doing, or do not approve of it. It would be tedious to recount everything that was thrown out from one quarter and another. Last of all the Consul said, “Secundus, when you are called on for your vote, you will be able to speak if you choose.” I replied, “You will have accorded me a permission, which up to this time you have accorded to every one.” I resumed my seat, and other business was transacted.
Meanwhile, one of my friends of consular rank deeming me to have advanced myself with too much daring and rashness, reproved me in some private and anxious words, recalling me, and warning me to stop. He went so far as to add, “You have made yourself a marked man in the eyes of future Princes.”
“So be it,” said I, “provided they are had Princes.” Scarce had he departed, when again another, “What daring is this? Whither are you rushing? What dangers are you throwing yourself in the way of? Why trust to the present state of things, while uncertain as to the future? You are attacking a man who is already Præfect of the Treasury, and who will shortly be Consul; a man, besides, supported by such interest and such connections!” He named a certain person, who at that time commanded a powerful and renowned army in the East — not without strong and suspicious rumours being connected with him. To this I answered, “All I’ve foreseen, and each event have weighed? Nor will I refuse, if fortune shall so bring it to pass, to suffer for a deed of the highest honour, provided I avenge one of the deepest guilt.”
It was now time for pronouncing our opinions. Domitius Apollinaris, Consul-Elect, spoke; there spoke also Rabricius Veiento, Rabius Postumius, and Yettius Proculus, the colleague of Publicius Certus (the person under discussion), who was moreover the stepfather of the wife whom I had lost. After these came Ammius Flaccus. They all of them defended Certus — though he had not yet been named by me — just as though he had been named, and by their defence took up a charge which I had left, so to speak, unattached. What further they said it is not necessary to relate. You have it in the books, for I have gone through the whole, using their own words. Avidius Quietus and Cornutus Tertullus spoke on the other side. Quietus said, “It would be most unjust that the complaints of aggrieved parties should be excluded; that, consequently, the right of presenting their plaints should not be taken from Arria and Fannia; nor was it of any consequence what rank a person belonged to, but what cause he had.” Cornutus said “that the consuls had assigned him as guardian to the daughter of Helvidius, at the request of her mother and stepfather, nor would he now endure to desert the duties of his office; in the discharge of which, however, he would set bounds to his own grief, and would merely convey the extremely temperate sentiments of these admirable ladies. They were content to call the attention of the Senate to the bloodthirsty sycophancy of Publicius Certus, and to beg that, in case punishment for guilt of the clearest kind were remitted, he might at any rate be branded by some mark, like that inflicted by the Censor.” Upon this, Satrius Rufus made a kind of half-and-half ambiguous speech. “I think,” said he, “that injury has been inflicted on Publicius Certus, if he is not acquitted. He has been named by the friends of Arria and Fannia, and he has been named by his own friends. Nor ought we to feel a difficulty about this; for we, the same who now pronounce favourably on the man, will also have to judge him. If he is innocent, as I hope and wish, and, until something be proved against him, believe, you will be able to acquit him.”
So they spoke, in the order in which each was called upon. Then came my turn. I rose and preluded, as in the book, replying to each severally. It was astonishing with what attention, what plaudits, everything that fell from me was received by the very persons who had just before been crying out upon me. Such was the change which ensued, either from the great importance of the affair, or the success of the oration, or the intrepidity of the speaker. I came to an end. Veiento commenced replying, but no one would endure him. There was a great noise and disturbance, so great indeed as to make him say, “I entreat, Conscript Fathers, that you will not compel me to invoke the aid of the Tribune.” Upon which, Murena, the Tribune, immediately exclaimed, “I give you leave to speak, most noble Veiento.” Even then he was shouted at. Meanwhile, the Consul called over the names, got through the division, and dismissed the Senate, leaving Veiento still almost on his legs and trying to speak. He complained loudly of this insult (so he called it), citing Homer’s line —
“Old man, by younger warriors thou’rt oppressed.”
There was scarce any one in the Senate who did not embrace and salute me, and vie in loading me with praises for having reintroduced the practice, so long interrupted, of consulting the public welfare, at the risk of incurring personal animosities; for having, in short, freed the Senate from the odium which was kindled against it among other orders, as being severe against the rest, and, with a kind of reciprocal connivance, indulgent to Senators alone.
All this took place in the absence of Certus; for he was absent, either because he suspected something of the kind, or (as the excuse was made for him) because he was ill. Cæsar, indeed, did not refer to the Senate any communication with regard to him; nevertheless I obtained what I had aimed at. For the colleague of Certus got the Consulship, and Certus himself was superseded, and what I had said at the end of my speech was completely carried out: “Let him give up, under the best, the distinction which he obtained under the worst of Princes.”
Subsequently I put together again my speech, as best I could, and made many additions. It happened by chance (but so as not to appear like chance) that Certus died a victim to disease within a very few days after the publication of my book. I heard people relate how this was the image which flitted before his mind and his eye — he seemed to see me threatening him with a sword. Whether this was true or not I would not venture to say positively; yet it would be to the interest of example that it should be held to be true.
Here you have a letter which, if you consider the limits of a letter, is no shorter than the hook you have read. But you must lay this to your own account, for not having been contented with the hook.
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14. — TO TACITUS.
You are not the man for self-applause; yet there is nothing which I write with more sincerity than what I write about you. Whether posterity will have any care for us I know not, yet we certainly deserve that it should have some: I do not say on account of our genius (that would be arrogance), but on account of our zeal, our labours, our regard for posterity. Let us only pursue the road we have determined on, one which, though it may have conducted but few to sunlight and fame, has yet brought many out of obscurity and oblivion.
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15. — TO FALCO.
I fled for refuge to my Tuscan estate, with the view of acting according to my own fancy in all things; but not even in my Tuscan estate is this possible. I am troubled with s
uch numerous applications on all sides from the farmers, and such grumbling ones; productions which I am rather more unwilling to read than my own writings; for even my own writings I read unwillingly. I am retouching certain short speeches, a work which, after a temporary intermission, is insipid and disagreeable. The estate accounts are neglected, as though I were absent. Occasionally, however, I mount my horse, and act the landlord so far as to ride over some portion of the farms, though merely for exercise. Do you keep up your habit, and write me in full (since you see what sort of a countryman I am) of the doings in town.
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16. — TO MAMILIANUS.
I do not wonder that you have derived the greatest pleasure from such an abundant species of chase, when you write to me, after the manner of historians, that “the numbers could not be counted.” For my part, I have neither leisure nor inclination for hunting; no leisure, because my vintage is on hand; no inclination, because the vintage is small. However, in the place of new wine, I am drawing off some new verses, and, as you are so polite in requiring them, will send them to you as soon as they shall seem to have laid aside their fermentation.
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17. — TO GENITOR.
Your letter is to hand, in which you complain that a dinner of the most sumptuous description bored you, in consequence of buffoons, wantons, and fools strolling about the tables. Pray, smooth those wrinkles of yours a bit! To be sure I keep nothing of the kind, yet I bear with those who do. Why don’t I keep them? Because I derive not the slightest pleasure either in the way of surprise or gaiety from any exhibition of looseness on the part of a wanton, or sauciness on the part of a buffoon, or silliness on the part of a fool. I am stating to you not my reasons, but my taste. And in truth, how many do you suppose there are who in the same way are offended at the things by which you and I are captivated and allured, deeming them to be partly foolish and partly irksome in a high degree! How many there are who, when a reader, or a performer on the lyre, or a comedian is introduced, call for their shoes, or remain at table with no less ennui than that with which you sat out these monstrosities, as you style them! Let us then make allowance for other people’s amusements, that we may obtain allowance for our own.
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18. — TO SABINUS.
How great has been the attention, the interest, the memory, in fine, with which you have read my small productions, is shown by your letter. You are therefore spontaneously cutting out work for yourself by enticing and alluring me to communicate to you as many as possible of my writings. I will do so, yet in parts at a time, and portioned out, so to speak, lest that very memory of yours which I have to thank should be confused by the constant succession and mass of matter, and, weighted and as it were oppressed, should lose its hold on particulars in consequence of their quantity, and on what has preceded in consequence of what follows.
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19. — TO RUSO.
You intimate to me that you have read in a certain letter of mine how Verginius Rufus ordered this epitaph to be placed on his tomb —
“Here Rufus lies, who Vindex overcame,
Not for his own, but for his country’s fame.”
You find fault with him for having ordered this; you go so far as to add that Frontinus acted better and more appropriately in forbidding any monument whatever to be erected to himself; and you end by consulting me as to my opinion in either case. I loved both of them. I had the greater admiration for the one whom you find fault with; such admiration, indeed, as to think that he never could he sufficiently praised, though I have now to undertake his defence. I judge all those who have done anything great and memorable to be in the highest deserving, not only of excuse, but actually of praise, if they pursue with eagerness the immortality which they have merited, and strive to prolong the renown of a name destined to live, even through the medium of sepulchral inscriptions. Nor can I easily find any one besides Verginius whose modesty in setting forth his deeds has equalled his glory in performing them. I, who enjoyed his intimate affection and approval, can personally testify that only on a single occasion in my hearing did he go so far as to relate just this one anecdote on the subject of his own actions, namely, that Cluvius had once addressed him in these terms: “You know, Verginius, the truthfulness which is due to history; accordingly, if you should read anything in my histories different from what you would wish, pray forgive me.” To which he replied, “Are you ignorant, Cluvius, that I did what I did precisely that it might be free to you authors to write what you chose?”
Come, now, let us compare this very Frontinus in the very respect in which he seems to you more modest and restrained. He forbad a monument to be constructed; but in what words? “The expense of a monument is superfluous. My memory will endure if my life deserved it.” Do you think it more modest to give out, to be read over the whole world, that one’s memory will endure, than in one single spot to inscribe what you have done, in a couple of verses? Though, to be sure, it is not my object to find fault with Frontinus, but to defend Verginius; and what can be a juster defence of him, as far as you are concerned, than that which arises from a comparison with him of the person you have preferred? In my judgment, indeed, neither of them is to be blamed, since both strove after glory with equal longing, though by a different road — one by desiring the inscription which was his due, the other by choosing rather the appearance of despising it.
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20. — TO VENATOR.
Your letter, assuredly, was all the more agreeable to me in proportion to its length, particularly as the whole of it was on the subject of my small productions; and I do not wonder at these being a pleasure to you, since you love everything connected with me just as you love me in person. I am, at the present moment, gathering in my vintage, a slender one, to be sure, yet a more plentiful one than I had anticipated — if “gathering in” it can be called to pluck a grape now and then, to visit the press, to taste the new wine out of the vat, to drop in on my servants from town, who are now overlooking the country ones, and who have left me to the company of my secretaries and readers.
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21. — TO SABINIANUS.
Your freedman, whom you told me you were so angry with, came to me and prostrated himself, and clung to my feet as though they had been your own. There were many tears, many prayers, and even much silence on his part; in short, he convinced me of his penitence. I believe him to be truly amended, because he feels that he has sinned. You are angry, I know, and you are rightly angry, that I know too; but it is precisely when there is the most just ground for anger that clemency is entitled to the highest praise. You have loved the man, and I hope you will love him again; meanwhile it will suffice that you permit yourself to be entreated. It will be lawful for you to be angry with him anew if he shall have deserved it; and if you are entreated now, you will do this with a better excuse. Make some allowance in view of the man’s youth, in view of his tears, in view of your own goodness of heart. Do not torment him, and do not torment yourself into the bargain. For you are tormented, you, who are so gentle, when you are angry. I fear that I shall seem not so much to entreat as to compel, should my prayers be joined to his. I will, however, join them, and they are all the stronger and the more profuse in proportion to the sharpness and severity with which I reprimanded him, having strictly threatened him that I would never again make an application to you. So much to him, for it was proper that he should be frightened; I do not say the same to you. For possibly I may again apply to you, and again obtain my object. May it only be such as it will become me to ask for and you to vouchsafe!
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22. — TO SEVERUS.
The illness of Passienus Paullus has caused me great anxiety, and this for many excellen
t reasons. He is a man of the highest worth and honour, and one who is greatly attached to me; moreover, in literature he rivals, recalls, and reproduces the ancients, particularly Propertius, from whom he is descended, whose genuine offspring he is, and whom he most resembles in the points’ in which the former excelled. If you take his elegiacs in hand, you will read a polished, dainty, charming book, an evident production of the household of Propertius. Recently he has turned to lyrics, in which he presents us with Horace, just as in the former kind of poetry with Propertius. You would suppose, if relationship has any power in letters, that he must be Horace’s kinsman as well. He is full of variety and flexibility. His love passages are those of a genuine lover; he mourns like one who will not be consoled; his praise is of the most benign, and his playfulness of the most humorous character; in short, he bestows the same pains on the tout ensemble as on the several parts. Sick in mind (no less than he was sick in body) on account of such a friend and such a genius, I have at length recovered him and have myself recovered. Congratulate me, congratulate literature itself too, which has encountered as great a risk from his peril as it will obtain glory in consequence of his safety.
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23. — TO MAXIMUS.
Often has it happened to me, when pleading, that the Centumviri, after keeping for a long while to their judicial dignity and gravity, have suddenly — as though vanquished and compelled to the act — risen from their seats in a body and applauded me. Often have I obtained from the Senate the highest glory I had aspired to. Yet never have I received greater pleasure than lately from what was told me by Cornelius Tacitus. He related how a Roman knight was sitting by him at the last Circensian games. After a conversation of a varied and learned character, the gentleman asked him, “Are you from Italy or the provinces?” He replied, “You know me, and from your reading too.” Upon which the other inquired, “Are you Tacitus or Pliny?” I cannot express how delightful it is to me that our names, as though belonging to literature, and not to human beings, are thus connected with literature; that each of us is known by means of his pursuits, even to those to whom he is otherwise unknown.
Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Younger (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) Page 30