Letters of Pliny
Nero's consuls, so Nero died when he was consul. Recollecting this, a
feeling of pity for the transitory condition of mankind comes over me.
Is there anything in nature so short and limited as human life, even at
its longest? Does it not seem to you but yesterday that Nero was alive?
And yet not one of all those who were consuls in his reign now remains!
Though why should I wonder at this? Lucius Piso (the father of that Piso
who was so infamously assassinated by Valerius Festus in Africa) used to
say, he did not see one person in the senate whose opinion he had
consulted when he was consul: in so short a space is the very term of
life of such a multitude of beings comprised! so that to me those royal
tears seem not only worthy of pardon but of praise. For it is said that
Xerxes, on surveying his immense army, wept at the reflection that so
many thousand lives would in such a short space of time be extinct. The
more ardent therefore should be our zeal to lengthen out this frail and
transient portion of existence, if not by our deeds (for the
opportunities of this are not in our power) yet certainly by our
literary accomplishments; and since long life is denied us, let us
transmit to posterity some memorial that we have at least LIVED. I well
know you need no incitements, but the warmth of my affection for you
inclines me to urge you on in the course you are already pursuing, just
as you have so often urged me. "Happy rivalry" when two friends strive
in this way which of them shall animate the other most in their mutual
pursuit of immortal fame. Farewell.
XXX -- To SPURINNA AND COTTIA[53]
I DID not tell you, when I paid you my last visit, that I had composed
something in praise of your son; because, in the first place, I wrote it
not for the sake of talking about my performance, but simply to satisfy
my affection, to console my sorrow for the loss of him. Again, as you
told me, my dear Spurinna, that you had heard I had been reciting a
piece of mine, I imagined you had also heard at the same time what was
the subject of the recital, and besides I was afraid of casting a gloom
over your cheerfulness in that festive season, by reviving the
remembrance of that heavy sorrow. And even now I have hesitated a little
whether I should gratify you both, in your joint request, by sending
only what I recited, or add to it what I am thinking of keeping back for
another essay. It does not satisfy my feelings to devote only one little
tract to a memory so dear and sacred to me, and it seemed also more to
the interest of his fame to have it thus disseminated by separate
pieces. But the consideration, that it will be more open and friendly to
send you the whole now, rather than keep back some of it to another
time, has determined me to do the former, especially as I have your
promise that it shall not be communicated by either of you to anyone
else, until I shall think proper to publish it. The only remaining
favour I ask is, that you will give me a proof of the same unreserve by
pointing out to me what you shall judge would be best altered, omitted,
or added. It is difficult for a mind in affliction to concentrate itself
upon such little cares. However, as you would direct a painter or
sculptor who was representing the figure of your son what parts he
should retouch or express, so I hope you will guide and inform my hand
in this more durable or (as you are pleased to think it) this immortal
likeness which I am endeavouring to execute: for the truer to the
original, the more perfect and finished it is, so much the more lasting
it is likely to prove. Farewell.
XXXI -- To JULIUS GENITOR
IT is just like the generous disposition of Artemidorus to magnify the
kindnesses of his friends; hence he praises my deserts (though he is
really indebted to me) beyond their due. It is true indeed that when the
philosophers were expelled from Rome,[54] I visited him at his house
near the city, and ran the greater risk in paying him that civility, as
it was more noticeable then, I being praetor at the time. I supplied him
too with a considerable sum to pay certain debts he had contracted upon
very honourable occasions, without charging interest, though obliged to
borrow the money myself, while the rest of his rich powerful friends
stood by hesitating about giving him assistance. I did this at a time
when seven of my friends were either executed or banished; Senecio,
Rusticus, and Helvidius having just been put to death, while Mauricus,
Gratilla, Arria, and Fannia, were sent into exile; and scorched as it
were by so many lightning-bolts of the state thus hurled and flashing
round me, I augured by no uncertain tokens my own impending doom. But I
do not look upon myself, on that account, as deserving of the high
praises my friend bestows upon me: all I pretend to is the being clear
of the infamous guilt of abandoning him in his misfortunes. I had, as
far as the differences between our ages would admit, a friendship for
his father-in-law Musonius, whom I both loved and esteemed, while
Artemidorus himself I entered into the closest intimacy with when I was
serving as a military tribune in Syria. And I consider as a proof that
there is some good in me the fact of my being so early capable of
appreciating a man who is either a philosopher or the nearest
resemblance to one possible; for I am sure that, amongst all those who
at the present day call themselves philosophers, you will find hardly
any one of them so full of sincerity and truth as he. I forbear to
mention how patient he is of heat and cold alike, how indefatigable in
labour, how abstemious in his food, and what an absolute restraint he
puts upon all his appetites; for these qualities, considerable as they
would certainly be in any other character, are less noticeable by the
side of the rest of those virtues of his which recommended him to
Musonius for a son-in-law, in preference to so many others of all ranks
who paid their addresses to his daughter. And when I think of all these
things, I cannot help feeling pleasurably affected by those unqualified
terms of praise in which he speaks of me to you as well as to everyone
else. I am only apprehensive lest the warmth of his kind feeling carry
him beyond the due limits; for he, who is so free from all other errors,
is apt to fall into just this one good-natured one, of overrating the
merits of his friends. Farewell.
XXXII -- To CATILIUS SEVERUS
I WILL come to supper, but must make this agreement beforehand, that I
go when I please, that you treat me to nothing expensive, and that our
conversation abound only in Socratic discourse, while even that in
moderation. There are certain necessary visits of ceremony, bringing
people out before daylight, which Cato himself could not safely fall in
with; though I must confess that Julius Cæsar reproaches him with that
circumstance in such a manner as redounds to his praise; for he tells us
that the persons who met him reeling home blushed at the discovery, and
adds, "You would have thought that Cato had detected them, and not they
Cato." Could he place the dignity of Cato in a stronger light than by
representing him thus venerable even in his cups? But let our supper be
as moderate in regard to hours as in the preparation and expense: for we
are not of such eminent reputation that even our enemies cannot censure
our conduct without applauding it at the same time. Farewell.
XXXIII -- To ACILIUS
THE atrocious treatment that Largius Macedo, a man of praetorian rank,
lately received at the hands of his slaves is so extremely tragical that
it deserves a place rather in public history than in a private letter;
though it must at the same time be acknowledged there was a haughtiness
and severity in his behaviour towards them which shewed that he little
remembered, indeed almost entirely forgot, the fact that his own father
had once been in that station of life. He was bathing at his Formian
Villa, when he found himself suddenly surrounded by his slaves; one
seizes him by the throat, another strikes him on the mouth, whilst
others trampled upon his breast, stomach, and even other parts which I
need not mention. When they thought the breath must be quite out of his
body, they threw him down upon the heated pavement of the bath, to try
whether he were still alive, where he lay outstretched and motionless,
either really insensible or only feigning to be so, upon which they
concluded him to be actually dead. In this condition they brought him
out, pretending that he had got suffocated by the heat of the bath. Some
of his more trusty servants received him, and his mistresses came about
him shrieking and lamenting. The noise of their cries and the fresh air,
together, brought him a little to himself; he opened his eyes, moved his
body, and shewed them (as he now safely might) that he was not quite
dead. The murderers immediately made their escape; but most of them have
been caught again, and they are after the rest. He was with great
difficulty kept alive for a few days, and then expired, having however
the satisfaction of finding himself as amply revenged in his lifetime as
he would have been after his death. Thus you see to what affronts,
indignities, and dangers we are exposed. Lenity and kind treatment are
no safeguard; for it is malice and not reflection that arms such
ruffians against their masters. So much for this piece of news. And what
else? What else? Nothing else, or you should hear it, for I have still
paper, and time too (as it is holiday time with me) to spare for more,
and I can tell you one further circumstance relating to Macedo, which
now occurs to me. As he was in a public bath once, at Rome, a
remarkable, and (judging from the manner of his death) an ominous,
accident happened to him. A slave of his, in order to make way for his
master, laid his hand gently upon a Roman knight, who, turning suddenly
round, struck, not the slave who had touched him, but Macedo, so violent
a blow with his open palm that he almost knocked him down. Thus the bath
by a kind of gradation proved fatal to him; being first the scene of an
indignity he suffered, afterwards the scene of his death. Farewell.
XXXIV -- To NEPOS
I HAVE constantly observed that amongst the deeds and sayings of
illustrious persons of either sex, some have made more noise in the
world, whilst others have been really greater, although less talked
about; and I am confirmed in this opinion by a conversation I had
yesterday with Fannia. This lady is a grand-daughter to that celebrated
Arria, who animated her husband to meet death, by her own glorious
example. She informed me of several particulars relating to Arria, no
less heroic than this applauded action of hers, though taken less notice
of, and I think you will be as surprised to read the account of them as
I was to hear it. Her husband Caecinna Paetus, and her son, were both
attacked at the same time with a fatal illness, as was supposed; of
which the son died, a youth of remarkable beauty, and as modest as he
was comely, endeared indeed to his parents no less by his many graces
than from the fact of his being their son. His mother prepared his
funeral and conducted the usual ceremonies so privately that Paetus did
not know of his death. Whenever she came into his room, she pretended
her son was alive and actually better: and as often as he enquired after
his health, would answer, "He has had a good rest, and eaten his food
with quite an appetite." Then when she found the tears, she had so long
kept back, gushing forth in spite of herself, she would leave the room,
and having given vent to her grief, return with dry eyes and a serene
countenance, as though she had dismissed every feeling of bereavement at