Letters of Pliny
this, not only by way of enforcing my advice by example, but also that
this letter may be a sort of tie upon me to persevere in the same
resolute abstinence for the future. Farewell.
LXXIV -- To CALPURNIA[111]
You will not believe what a longing for you possesses me. The chief
cause of this is my love; and then we have not grown used to be apart.
So it comes to pass that I lie awake a great part of the night, thinking
of you; and that by day, when the hours return at which I was wont to
visit you, my feet take me, as it is so truly said, to your chamber, but
not finding you there, I return, sick and sad at heart, like an excluded
lover. The only time that is free from these torments is when I am being
worn out at the bar, and in the suits of my friends. Judge you what must
be my life when I find my repose in toil, my solace in wretchedness and
anxiety. Farewell.
LXXV -- To MACRINUS
A VERY singular and remarkable accident has happened in the affair of
Varenus,[112] the result of which is yet doubtful. The Bithynians, it is
said, have dropped their prosecution of him being convinced at last that
it was rashly undertaken. A deputy from that province is arrived, who
has brought with him a decree of their assembly; copies of which he has
delivered to Cæsar,[113] and to several of the leading men in Rome, and
also to us, the advocates for Varenus. Magnus,[114] nevertheless, whom I
mentioned in my last letter to you, persists in his charge, to support
which he is incessantly teasing the worthy Nigrinus. This excellent
person was counsel for him in his former petition to the consuls, that
Varenus might be compelled to produce his accounts. Upon this occasion,
as I attended Varenus merely as a friend, I determined to be silent. I
thought it highly imprudent for me, as I was appointed his counsel by
the senate, to attempt to defend him as an accused person, when it was
his business to insist that there was actually no charge subsisting
against him. However, when Nigrinus had finished his speech, the consuls
turning their eyes upon me, I rose up, and, "When you shall hear," I
said, "what the real deputies from the province have to object against
the motion of Nigrinus, you will see that my silence was not without
just reason." Upon this Nigrinus asked me, "To whom are these deputies
sent?" I replied, "To me among others; I have the decree of the province
in my hands." He returned, "That is a point which, though it may be
clear to you, I am not so well satisfied of." To this I answered,
"Though it may not be so evident to you, who are concerned to support
the accusation, it may be perfectly clear to me, who am on the more
favourable side." Then Polyaenus, the deputy from the province,
acquainted the senate with the reasons for superseding the prosecution,
but desired it might be without prejudice to Cæsar's determination.
Magnus answered him; Polyaenus replied; as for myself, I only now and
then threw in a word, observing in general a complete silence. For I
have learned that upon some occasions it is as much an orator's business
to be silent as to speak, and I remember, in some criminal cases, to
have done even more service to my clients by a discreet silence than I
could have expected from the most carefully prepared speech. To enter
into the subject of eloquence is indeed very foreign to the purpose of
my letter, yet allow me to give you one instance in proof of my last
observation. A certain lady having lost her son suspected that his
freedmen, whom he had appointed coheirs with her, were guilty of forging
the will and poisoning him. Accordingly she charged them with the fact
before the emperor, who directed Julianus Suburanus to try the cause. I
was counsel for the defendants, and the case being exceedingly
remarkable, and the counsel engaged on both sides of eminent ability, it
drew together a very numerous audience. The issue was, the servants
being put to the torture, my clients were acquitted. But the mother
applied a second time to the emperor, pretending she had discovered some
new evidence. Suburanus was therefore directed to hear the cause, and
see if she could produce any fresh proofs. Julius Africanus was counsel
for the mother, a young man of good parts, but slender experience. He is
grandson to the famous orator of that name, of whom it is reported that
Passienus Crispus, hearing him one day plead, archly said, "Very fine, I
must confess, very fine; but is all this fine speaking to the purpose?"
Julius Africanus, I say, having made a long harangue, and exhausted the
portion of time allotted to him, said, "I beg you, Suburanus, to allow
me to add one word more." When he had concluded, and the eyes of the
whole assembly had been fixed a considerable time upon me, I rose up. "I
would have answered Africanus," said I, "if he had added that one word
he begged leave to do, in which I doubt not he would have told us all
that we had not heard before." I do not remember to have gained so much
applause by any speech that I ever made as I did in this instance by
making none. Thus the little that I had hitherto said for Varenus was
received with the same general approbation. The consuls, agreeably to
the request of Polyaenus, reserved the whole affair for the
determination of the emperor, whose resolution I impatiently wait for;
as that will decide whether I may be entirely secure and easy with
respect to Varenus, or must again renew all my trouble and anxiety upon
his account. Farewell.
LXXVI -- To TUSCUS
You desire my opinion as to the method of study you should pursue, in
that retirement to which you have long since withdrawn. In the first
place, then, I look upon it as a very advantageous practice (and it is
what many recommend) to translate either from Greek into Latin or from
Latin into Greek. By this means you acquire propriety and dignity of
expression, and a variety of beautiful figures, and an ease and strength
of exposition, and in the imitation of the best models a facility of
creating such models for yourself. Besides, those things which you may
possibly have overlooked in an ordinary reading over cannot escape you
in translating: and this method will also enlarge your knowledge, and
improve your judgment. It may not be amiss, after you have read an
author, to turn, as it were, to his rival, and attempt something ol your
own upon the same topic, and then make a careful comparison between your
performance and his, in order to see in what points either you or he may
be the happier. You may congratulate yourself indeed if you shall find
in some things that you have the advantage of him, while it will be a
great mortification if he is always superior. You may sometimes select
very famous passages and compete with what you select. The competition
is daring enough, but, as it is private, cannot be called impudent. Not
but that we have seen instances of persons who have publicly entered
this sort of lists with great credit to themselves, and, while they did
not despair of overtaking, have gloriously outstripped those whom they
thought it sufficient honour to follow. A speech no longer fresh in your
memory, you may take up again. You will find plenty in it to leave
unaltered, but still more to reject; you will add a new thought here,
and alter another there. It is a laborious and tedious task, I own, thus
to re-enflame the mind after the first heat is over, to recover an
impulse when its force has been checked and spent, and, worse than all,
to put new limbs into a body already complete without disturbing the
old; but the advantage attending this method will overbalance the
difficulty. I know the bent of your present attention is directed
towards the eloquence of the bar; but I would not for that reason advise
you never to quit the polemic, if I may so call it, and contentious
style. As land is improved by sowing it with various seeds, constantly
changed, so is the mind by exercising it now with this subject of study,
now with that. I would recommend you, therefore, sometimes to take a
subject from history, and you might give more care to the composition of
your letters. For it frequently happens that in pleading one has
occasion to make use not only of historical, but even poetical, styles
of description; and then from letters you acquire a concise and simple
mode of expression. You will do quite right again in refreshing yourself
with poetry: when I say so, I do not mean that species of poetry which
turns upon subjects of great length and continuity (such being suitable
only for persons of leisure), but those little pieces of the sprightly
kind of poesy, which serve as proper reliefs to, and are consistent
with, employments of every sort. They commonly go under the title of
poetical amusements; but these amusements have sometimes gained their
authors as much reputation as works of a more serious nature; and thus
(for while I am exhorting you to poetry, why should I not turn poet
myself?)
"As yielding wax the artist's skill commands, Submissive shap'd beneath
his forming hands; Now dreadful stands in arms a Mars confest; Or now
with Venus's softer air imprest; A wanton Cupid now the mould belies;
Now shines, severely chaste, a Pallas wife: As not alone to quench the
raging flame, The sacred fountain pours her friendly stream; But sweetly
gliding through the flow'ry green, Spreads glad refreshment o'er the
smiling scene: So, form'd by science, should the ductile mind Receive,
distinct, each various art refin'd."
In this manner the greatest men, as well as the greatest orators, used
either to exercise or amuse themselves, or rather indeed did both. It is
surprising how much the mind is enlivened and refreshed by these little
poetical compositions, as they turn upon love, hatred, satire,
tenderness, politeness, and everything, in short, that concerns life and
the affairs of the world. Besides, the same advantage attends these, as
every other sort of poems, that we turn from them to prose with so much
the more pleasure after having experienced the difficulty of being
constrained and fettered by metre. And now, perhaps, I have troubled you
upon this subject longer than you desired; however, there is one thing I
have left out: I have not told you what kind of authors you should read;
though indeed that was sufficiently implied when I told you on what you
should write. Remember to be careful in your choice of authors of every
kind: for, as it has been well observed, "though we should read much, we
should not read many books." Who those authors are, is so clearly
settled, and so generally known, that I need not particularly specify
them; besides, I have already extended this letter to such an immoderate
length that, while suggesting how you ought to study, I have, I fear,
been actually interrupting your studies. I will here resign you
therefore to your tablets, either to resume the studies in which you
were before engaged or to enter upon some of those I have recommended.
Farewell.
LXX VII -- To FABATUS (HIS WIFE'S GRANDFATHER)
You are surprised, I find, that my share of five-twelfths of the estate
which lately fell to me, and which I had directed to be sold to the best
bidder, should have been disposed of by my freedman Hermes to Corellia
(without putting it up to auction) at the rate of seven hundred thousand
sesterces[115] for the whole. And as you think it might have fetched
nine hundred thousand,[116] you are so much the more desirous to know
whether I am inclined to ratify what he has done. I am; and listen,
while I tell you why, for I hope that not only you will approve, but
also that my fellow-coheirs will excuse me for having, upon a motive of
superior obligation, separated my interest from theirs. I have the