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III. — TO ANTONIUS.
That you, like your ancestors of old, have been twice consul, that you have been proconsul of Asia with a record such as not more than one or two of your predecessors and successors have enjoyed — for your modesty is such that I do not like to say that no one has equalled you — that in purity of life, influence and age, you are the principal man of the State, — all these things inspire respect and give distinction, and yet I admire you even more in your retirement. For to season, as you do, all your strict uprightness with charm of manner equally striking, and to be such an agreeable companion as well as such a man of weight, that is no less difficult than it is desirable. Yet you succeed in so doing with wonderful sweetness both in your conversation and above all, when you set pen to paper. For when you talk, all the honey of Homer’s old man eloquent seems to flow from your tongue, and when you write, the bees seem to be busy pouring into every line their choicest essences and charging them with sweetness. That certainly was my impression when I recently read your Greek epigrams and iambics. What breadth of feeling they contain, what choice expressions, how graceful they are, how musical, how exact! I thought I was holding in my hands Callimachus or Herodes, or even a greater poet than these, if greater there be, yet neither of these two poets attempted or excelled in both these forms of verse. Is it possible for a Roman to write such Greek? I do not believe that even Athens has so pure an Attic touch. But why go on? I am jealous of the Greeks that you should have elected to write in their language, for it is easy to guess what choice work you could turn out in your mother-tongue, when you have produced such splendid results with an exotic language which has been transplanted into our midst. Farewell.
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IV. — TO SOSIUS SENECIO.
I have the greatest regard for Varisidius Nepos; he is hardworking, upright, and a scholar — a point which with me outweighs almost any other. He is a near relative and, in fact, a son of the sister of Caius Calvisius, my old companion and a friend too of yours. I beg that you will give him a tribuneship for six months and so advance him in dignity, both for his own and for his uncle’s sake. By so doing you will confer a favour on me, on our friend Calvisius, and on Varisidius himself, who is quite as worthy to be under an obligation to you as we are. You have showered kindnesses on numbers of people, and I will venture to say that you have never bestowed one that was better deserved, and have but rarely granted one that was deserved so well. Farewell.
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V. — TO SPARSUS.
There is a story that Aeschines was once asked by the Rhodians to read them one of his speeches, that he afterwards read them one of Demosthenes’ as well, and that both were received with great applause. I cannot wonder that the orations of such distinguished men were applauded, when I think that just recently the most learned men in Rome listened for two days together to a speech of mine, with such earnestness, applause, and concentration of attention, though there was nothing to stir their blood, no other speech with which to compare mine, and not a trace of the acharnement of debate. While the Rhodians had not only the beauties of the two speeches to kindle them but also the charm of comparison, my speech was approved though it lacked the advantages of being controversial. Whether it deserved its reception you will be able to judge when you have read it, and its bulk does not allow of my making a longer preface. For I ought certainly to be brief here where brevity is possible, so that I may be the more readily excused for the length of the speech itself, though it is not longer than the subject required. Farewell.
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VI. — TO JULIUS NASO.
My Tuscan farms have been lashed by hail; from my property in the Transpadane region I get news that the crops are very heavy but the prices rule equally low, and it is only my Laurentian estate that makes me any return. It is true that all my belongings there consist of but a house and a garden, yet it is the only property which brings me in any revenue. For while I am there I write hard and I till — not fields, for I have none — but my own wits, and so I can show you there a full granary of MSS., as elsewhere I can show you full barns of wheat. Hence if you are anxious for sure and fruitful farms, you too should sow your grain on the same kind of shore. Farewell.
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VII. — TO CATIUS LEPIDUS.
I am constantly writing to tell you what energy Regulus possesses. It is wonderful the way he carries through anything which he has set his mind upon. It pleased him to mourn for his son — and never man mourned like him; it pleased him to erect a number of statues and busts to his memory, and the result is that he is keeping all the workshops busy; he is having his boy represented in colours, in wax, in bronze, in silver, in gold, ivory, and marble — always his boy. He himself just lately got together a large audience and read a memoir of his life — of the boy’s life; he read it aloud, and yet had a thousand copies written out which he has scattered broadcast over Italy and the provinces. He wrote at large to the decurions and asked them to choose one of their number with the best voice to read the memoir to the people, and it was done. What good he might have effected with this energy of his — or whatever name we should give to such dauntless determination on his part to get his own way — if he had only turned it into a better channel! But then, as you know, good men rarely have this faculty so well developed as bad men; the Greeks say, “Ignorance makes a man bold; calculation gives him pause,” and just in the same way modesty cripples the force of an upright mind, while unblushing confidence is a source of strength to a man without conscience. Regulus is a case in point. He has weak lungs, he never looks you straight in the face, he stammers, he has no imaginative power, absolutely no memory, no quality at all, in short, except a wild, frantic genius, and yet, thanks to his effrontery, and even just to this frenzy of his, he has got people to regard him as an orator. Herennius Senecio very neatly turned against him Cato’s well- known definition of an orator by saying, “An orator is a bad man who knows nothing of the art of speaking,” and I really think that he thereby gave a better definition of Regulus than Cato did of the really true orator.
Have you any equivalent to send me for a letter like this? Yes, indeed, you have, if you will write and say whether any one of my friends in your township, or whether you yourself have read this pitiful production of Regulus in the Forum, like a Cheap Jack, pitching your voice high, as Demosthenes says, shouting with delight, and straining every muscle in your throat. For it is so absurd that it will make you laugh rather than sigh, and you would think it was written not about a boy but by a boy. Farewell.
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VIII. — TO MATURUS ARRIANUS.
You congratulate me on accepting the office of augur. You are right in so doing, first, because it is a proper thing to obey the wishes of an emperor with a character like ours, and, secondly, because the priestly office is in itself an ancient and sacred one, and inspires respect and dignity from the very fact that it is held for life. For other offices, though almost equal in point of dignity to this, may be bestowed one day and taken away the next, while with the augurship the element of chance only enters into the bestowal of it. I think too that I have special reasons for congratulating myself in that I have succeeded Julius Frontinus, one of the leading men of his day, who for many years running used to bring forward my name, whenever the nomination day for the priesthoods came round, as though he wished to coopt me to fill his place. Now events have turned out in such a way that my election does not seem to have been the work of chance. I can only hope that as I have attained to the priesthood and the consulship at a much earlier age than he did, I may, when I am old, at least in some degree acquire his serenity of mind. But all that man can give has fallen to my lot and to many another; the other thing, which can only be bestowed by the go
ds, is as difficult to attain to as it is presumptuous to hope for it. Farewell.
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IX. — TO CORNELIUS URSUS.
For some days past Julius Bassus has been on his defence. He is a much harassed man whose misfortunes have made him famous. An accusation was lodged against him in Vespasian’s reign by two private individuals; the case was referred to the Senate, and for a long time he has been on the tenter-hooks, but at last he has been acquitted and his character cleared. He was afraid of Titus because he had been a friend of Domitian, yet he had been banished by the latter, was recalled by Nerva, and, after being appointed by lot to the governorship of Bithynia, returned from the province to stand his trial. The case against him was keenly pressed, but he was no less loyally defended.
Pomponius Rufus, a ready and impetuous speaker, opened against him and was followed by Theophanes, one of the deputation from the province, who was the very life and soul of the prosecution, and indeed the originator of it. I replied on Bassus’ behalf, for he had instructed me to lay the foundations of his whole defence, to give an account of his distinctions, which were very considerable — as he was a man of good family, and had been in many tight places — to dilate upon the conspiracy of the informers and the gains they counted upon, and to explain how it was that Bassus had roused the resentment of all the restless spirits of the province, and notably of Theophanes himself. He had expressed a wish that I too should controvert the charge which was damaging him most. For as to the others, though they sounded to be even more serious, he deserved not only acquittal but approbation, and the only thing that troubled him was that, in an unguarded moment and in perfect innocence, he had received certain presents from the provincials as a token of friendship, for he had served in the same province previously as quaestor. His accusers stigmatised these gifts as thefts and plunder: he called them presents, but the law forbids even presents to be accepted by a governor.
In such a case what was I to do, what line of defence was I to take up? If I denied them in toto, I was afraid that people would immediately regard as a theft the presents which I was afraid to confess had been received. Moreover, to deny the obvious truth would have been to aggravate and not lessen the gravity of the charge, especially as the accused himself had cut the ground away from under the feet of his counsel. For he had told many people, and even the Emperor, that he had accepted, but only on his birthday or at the feast of the Saturnalia, some few trifling presents, and had also sent similar gifts to some of his friends. Was I then to acknowledge this and plead for clemency? Had I done so, I should have put a knife to my client’s throat by confessing that he had committed offences and could only be acquitted by an act of clemency. Was I to defend his conduct and justify it? That would have done him no good, and would have stamped me as an unblushing advocate.
In this difficult position I resolved to take a middle course, and I think I succeeded in so doing. Night interrupted my pleading, as it so often interrupts battles. I had been speaking for three hours and a half, and I had another hour and a half still left me. The law allowed the accuser six hours and the defendant nine, and Bassus had arranged the time at his disposal by giving me five hours, and the remainder to the advocate who was to speak after me. The success of my pleading persuaded me to say no more and make an end, for it is rash not to rest content when things are going well. Besides, I was afraid I might break down physically if I went over the ground again, as it is more difficult to pick up the threads of a speech than to go straight on. There was also the risk of the remainer of my speech meeting with a chilly reception, owing to the threads being dropped, or of it boring the judges if I gathered them up anew. For, just as the flame of a torch is kept alight if you wave it continually up and down, but is difficult to resuscitate when it has been allowed to go out, so the warmth of a speaker and the attention of his audience are kept alive if he goes on speaking, but cool off at any interruption which causes interest to flag. But Bassus begged and prayed of me, almost with tears in his eyes, to take my full time. I gave way, and preferred his interests to my own. It turned out well, for I found that the senators were so attentive and so fresh that, instead of having had quite enough of my speech of the day before, it seemed to have only whetted their appetites for more.
Lucceius Albinus followed me and spoke so much to the point that our speeches were considered to have all the diversity of two addresses but the cohesion of one. Herennius Pollio replied with force and dignity, and then Theophanes again rose. He showed his usual effrontery in demanding a more liberal allowance of time than is usually granted — even after two advocates of ability and consular rank had concluded — and he went on speaking until nightfall, an actually continued after that, when lights had been brought into court.
On the following day Titius Homullus and Fronto made a splendid effort on behalf of Bassus, and the hearing of the evidence took up the fourth day. Baebius Macer, the consul-designate, proposed that Bassus should be dealt with under the law relating to extortion, while Caepio Hispo was in favour of appointing judges to hear the case, but urged that Bassus should retain his place in the Senate. Both were in the right. How can that be? you may ask. For this reason, because Macer, looking at the letter of the law, was justified in condemning a man who had broken the law by receiving presents; while Caepio, acting on the assumption that the Senate has the right — which it certainly has — both to mitigate the severity of the laws and to rigorously put them in force, was not unreasonably desirous of excusing an offence which, though illegal, is very often committed. Caepio’s proposal carried the day; indeed, when he rose to speak he was greeted with the applause which is usually reserved for speakers upon resuming their seats. This will enable you to judge how unanimously the motion was received while he was speaking, when it met with such a reception on his rising to put it.
However, just as there was difference of opinion in the Senate, so there is the same with the general public. Those who approved the proposal of Caepio find fault with that of Macer as being vindictive and severe; those who agree with Macer condemn Caepio’s motion as lax and even inconsistent, for they say it is incongruous to allow a man to keep his place in the Senate when judges have been allotted to try him. There was also a third proposal. Valerius Paulinus, who agreed in the main with Caepio, proposed that an inquiry should be instituted into the case of Theophanes, as soon as he had concluded his work on the deputation. It was urged that during his conduct of the prosecution he had committed a number of offences which came within the scope of the law under which he had accused Bassus. However, the consuls did not approve this proposal, though it found great favour with a large proportion of the Senate. None the less, Paulinus gained a reputation thereby for justice and consistency. When the Senate rose, Bassus came in for an ovation; crowds gathered round him and greeted him with a remarkable demonstration of their joy. Public sympathy had been aroused in his favour by the old story of the hazards he had gone through being told over again, by the association of his name with grave perils, by his tall physique and the sadness and poverty of his old age. You must consider this letter as the forerunner of another: you will be looking out for my speech in full and with every detail, and you will have to look out for it for some time to come, because, owing to the importance of the subject, it will require more than a mere brief and cursory revision. Farewell.
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X. — TO STATIUS SABINUS.
You tell me that Sabina, who left us her heirs, never gave any instructions that her slave Modestus was to be granted his freedom, though she left him a legacy in these words: “I give…to Modestus, whom I have ordered to receive his liberty.” You ask me what I think of the matter. I have consulted some eminent lawyers and they all agree that Modestus need not be given his freedom, because it was not expressly granted by Sabina, nor his legacy, because she left it to him as a slave. But the mistake is obvious to me, and so I think that we
ought to act as though Sabina had ordered him to be freed in express terms, since she certainly was under the impression that she had ordered it. I am sure that you will be of my way of thinking, for you are most punctilious in carrying out the intentions of a dead person, which are, with honourable heirs, tantamount to legal obligations. For with us honour has as much weight as necessity has with others. So I propose that we should allow Modestus to have his liberty and enjoy his legacy, as if Sabina had taken all proper precautions to ensure that he should. For a lady who has made a good choice of her heirs has surely taken all the precautions necessary. Farewell.
Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Younger (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) Page 12
