Letters of Pliny
THE sickness lately in my family, which has carried off several of my
servants, some of them, too, in the prime of their years, has been a
great affliction to me. I have two consolations, however, which, though
by no means equivalent to such a grief, still are consolations. One is,
that as I have always readily manumitted my slaves, their death does not
seem altogether immature, if they lived long enough to receive their
freedom: the other, that I have allowed them to make a kind of
will,[130] which I observe as religiously as if they were legally
entitled to that privilege. I receive and obey their last requests and
injunctions as so many authoritative commands, suffering them to dispose
of their effects to whom they please; with this single restriction, that
they leave them to some one in my household, for to slaves the house
they are in is a kind of state and commonwealth, so to speak. But though
I endeavor to acquiesce under these reflections, yet the same tenderness
which led me to show them these indulgences weakens and gets the better
of me. However, I would not wish on that account to become harder:
though the generality of the world, I know, look upon losses of this
kind in no other view than as a diminution of their property, and fancy,
by cherishing such an unfeeling temper, they show a superior fortitude
and philosophy. Their fortitude and philosophy I will not dispute. But
humane, I am sure, they are not; for it is the very criterion of true
manhood to feel those impressions of sorrow which it endeavors to
resist, and to admit not to be above the want of consolation. But
perhaps I have detained you too long upon this subject, though not so
long as I would. There is a certain pleasure even in giving vent to
one's grief; especially when we weep on the bosom of a friend who will
approve, or, at least, pardon, our tears. Farewell.
XCI -- To MACRINUS
Is the weather with you as rude and boisterous as it is with us? All
here is in tempest and inundation. The Tiber has swelled its channel,
and overflowed its banks far and wide. Though the wise precaution of the
emperor had guarded against this evil, by cutting several outlets to the
river, it has nevertheless flooded all the fields and valleys and
entirely overspread the whole face of the flat country. It seems to have
gone out to meet those rivers which it used to receive and carry off in
one united stream, and has driven them back to deluge those countries it
could not reach itself. That most delightful of rivers, the Anio, which
seems invited and detained in its course by the villas built along its
banks, has almost entirely rooted up and carried away the woods which
shaded its borders. It has overthrown whole mountains, and, in
endeavouring to find a passage through the mass of ruins that obstructed
its way, has forced down houses, and risen and spread over the
desolation it has occasioned. The inhabitants of the hill countries, who
are situated above the reach of this inundation, have been the
melancholy spectators of its dreadful effects, having seen costly
furniture, instruments of husbandry, ploughs, and oxen with their
drivers, whole herds of cattle, together with the trunks of trees, and
beams of the neighbouring villas, floating about in different parts. Nor
indeed have these higher places themselves, to which the waters could
not reach up, escaped the calamity. A continued heavy rain and
tempestuous hurricane, as destructive as the river itself, poured down
upon them, and has destroyed all the enclosures which divided that
fertile country. It has damaged likewise, and even overturned, some of
the public buildings, by the fall of which great numbers have been
maimed, smothered, bruised. And thus lamentation over the fate of
friends has been added to losses. I am extremely uneasy lest this
extensive ruin should have spread to you: I beg therefore, if it has
not, you will immediately relieve my anxiety; and indeed I desire you
would inform me though it should have done so; for the difference is not
great between fearing a danger, and feeling it; except that the evil one
feels has some bounds, whereas one's apprehensions have none. For we can
suffer no more than what actually has happened but we fear all that
possibly could happen. Farewell.
XCII -- To RUFINUS
The common notion is certainly quite a false one, that a man's will is a
kind of mirror in which we may clearly discern his real character, for
Domitius Tullus appears a much better man since his death than he did
during his lifetime. After having artfully encouraged the expectations
of those who paid court to him, with a view to being his heirs, he has
left his estate to his niece whom he adopted. He has given likewise
several very considerable legacies among his grandchildren, and also to
his great-grandson. In a word, he has shown himself a most kind relation
throughout his whole will; which is so much the more to be admired as it
was not expected of him. This affair has been very much talked about,
and various opinions expressed: some call him false, ungrateful, and
forgetful, and, while thus railing at him in this way as if they were
actually disinherited kindred, betray their own dishonest designs:
others, on the contrary, applaud him extremely for having disappointed
the hopes of this infamous tribe of men, whom, considering the
disposition of the times, it is but prudence to deceive. They add that
he was not at liberty to make any other will, and that he cannot so
properly be said to have bequeathed, as returned, his estate to his
adopted daughter, since it was by her means it came to him. For
Curtilius Mancia, whose daughter Domitius Lucanus, brother to this
Tullus, married, having taken a dislike to his son-in-law, made this
young lady (who was the issue of that marriage) his heiress, upon
condition that Lucanus her father would emancipate her. He accordingly
did so, but she being afterwards adopted by Tullus, her uncle, the
design of Mancia's will was entirely frustrated. For these two brothers
having never divided their patrimony, but living together as joint-
tenants of one common estate, the daughter of Lucanus, notwithstanding
the act of emancipation, returned back again, together with her large
fortune, under the dominion of her father, by means of this fraudulent
adoption. It seems indeed to have been the fate of these two brothers to
be enriched by those who had the greatest aversion to them. For Domitius
Afer, by whom they were adopted, left a will in their favour, which he
had made eighteen years before his death; though it was plain he had
since altered his opinion with regard to the family, because he was
instrumental in procuring the confiscation of their father's estate.
There is something extremely singular in the resentment of Afer, and the
good fortune of the other two; as it was very extraordinary, on the one
hand, that Domitius should endeavour to extirpate from the privileges of
society a man whose children he had adopted, and, on the other, that
these brothers should find a parent in the very person that ruined their
father. But Tullus acted justly, after having been appointed sole heir
by his brother, in prejudice to his own daughter, to make her amends by
transferring to her this estate, which came to him from Afer, as well as
all the rest which he had gained in partnership with his brother. His
will therefore deserves the higher praise, having been dictated by
nature, justice, and sense of honour; in which he has returned his
obligations to his several relations, according to their respective good
offices towards him, not forgetting his wife, having bequeathed to that
excellent woman, who patiently endured much for his sake, several
delightful villas, besides a large sum of money. And indeed she deserved
so much the more at his hands, in proportion to the displeasure she
incurred on her marriage with him. It was thought unworthy a person of
her birth and repute, so long left a widow by her former husband, by
whom she had issue, to marry, in the decline of her life, an old man,
merely for his wealth, and who was so sickly and infirm that, even had
he passed the best years of his youth and health with her, she might
well have been heartily tired of him. He had so entirely lost the use of
all his limbs that he could not move himself in bed without assistance;
and the only enjoyment he had of his riches was to contemplate them. He
was even (sad and disgusting to relate) reduced to the necessity of
having his teeth washed and scrubbed by others: in allusion to which he
used frequently to say, when he was complaining of the indignities which
his infirmities obliged him to suffer, that he was every day compelled
to lick his servant's fingers. Still, however, he lived on, and was
willing to accept of life upon such terms. That he lived so long as he
did was particularly owing, indeed, to the care of his wife, who,
whatever reputation she might lose at first by her marriage, acquired
great honour by her unwearied devotion as his wife. -- Thus I have given
you all the news of the town, where nothing is talked of but Tullus. It
is expected his curiosities will shortly be sold by auction. He had such
an abundant collection of very old statues that he actually filled an
extensive garden with them, the very same day he purchased it; not to
mention numberless other antiques, lying neglected in his lumber-room.
If you have anything worth telling me in return, I hope you will not
refuse the trouble of writing to me: not only as we are all of us
naturally fond, you know, of news, but because example has a very
beneficial influence upon our own conduct. Farewell.
XCIII -- To GALLUS
THOSE works of art or nature which are usually the motives of our
travels are often overlooked and neglected if they lie within our reach:
whether it be that we are naturally less inquisitive concerning those
things which are near us, while our curiosity is excited by remote
objects; or because the easiness of gratifying a desire is always sure
to damp it; or, perhaps, that we put off from time to time going and
seeing what we know we have an opportunity of seeing when we please.
Whatever the reason be, it is certain there are numberless curiosities
in and near Rome which we have not only never seen, but even never so
much as heard of: and yet had they been the produce of Greece, or Egypt,
or Asia, or any other country which we admire as fertile and productive
of belief in wonders, we should long since have heard of them, read of
them, and enquired into them. For myself at least, I confess, I have
lately been entertained with one of these curiosities, to which I was an
entire stranger before. My wife's grandfather desired I would look over
his estate near Ameria.[131] As I was walking over his grounds, 1 was
shown a lake that lies below them, called Vadirnon,[132] about which
several very extraordinary things are told. I went up to this lake. It
is perfectly circular in form, like a wheel lying on the ground; there
is not the least curve or projection of the shore, but all is regular,
even, and just as if it had been hollowed and cut out by the hand of
art. The water is of a clear sky-blue, though with somewhat of a
greenish tinge; its smell is sulphurous, and its flavour has medicinal
properties, and is deemed of great efficacy in all fractures of the
limbs, which it is supposed to heal. Though of but moderate extent, yet
the winds have a great effect upon it, throwing it into violent
agitation. No vessels are suffered to sail here, as its waters are held
sacred; but several floating islands swim about it, covered with reeds
and rushes, and with whatever other plants the surrounding marshy ground
and the edge itself of the lake produce in greater abundance. Each