13 Finem existimas? Mane dum et maiora accipe: ‘Utique, cum sit utile principis benignitatem promptissimam ad laudem praemiaque merentium illustrari ubique et maxime iis locis, quibus incitari ad imitationem praepositi rerum eius curae possent, et Pallantis spectatissima fides atque innocentia exemplo provocare studium tam honestae aemulationis posset, ea quae X. kal. Februarias quae proximae fuissent in amplissimo ordine optimus princeps recitasset senatusque consulta de iis rebus facta in aere inciderentur, idque aes figeretur ad statuam loricatam divi Iulii’. 14 Parum visum tantorum dedecorum esse curiam testem: delectus est celeberrimus locus, in quo legenda praesentibus, legenda futuris proderentur. Placuit aere signari omnes honores fastidiosissimi mancipii, quosque repudiasset quosque quantum ad decernentes pertinet gessit. Incisa et insculpta sunt publicis aeternisque monumentis praetoria ornamenta Pallantis, sic quasi foedera antiqua, sic quasi sacrae leges. 15 Tanta principis, tanta senatus, tanta Pallantis ipsius — quid dicam nescio, ut vellent in oculis omnium figi Pallas insolentiam suam, patientiam Caesar, humilitatem senatus. Nec puduit rationem turpitudini obtendere, egregiam quidem pulchramque rationem, ut exemplo Pallantis praemiorum ad studium aemulationis ceteri provocarentur. 16 Ea honorum vilitas erat, illorum etiam quos Pallas non dedignabatur. Inveniebantur tamen honesto loco nati, qui peterent cuperentque quod dari liberto promitti servis videbant.
17 Quam iuvat quod in tempora illa non incidi, quorum sic me tamquam illis vixerim pudet! Non dubito similiter affici te. Scio quam sit tibi vivus et ingenuus animus: ideo facilius est ut me; quamquam indignationem quibusdam in locis fortasse ultra epistulae modum extulerim, parum doluisse quam nimis credas. Vale.
6. — TO MONTANUS.
You must have learnt by this time from my letter how I lately remarked a monument to Pallas with this inscription on it: “To him the Senate, on account of his faithfulness and loyalty to his patrons, decreed the Prætorian insignia and a sum of fifteen million sesterces. He was contented with the honour merely. Subsequently it seemed to me worth while to hunt up the decree itself. I found it, and it was so verbose and extravagant, that the above extremely fulsome inscription seems modest and even humble by its side. Let — I will not say the Africani and Achaici and Numantini of old — but the men that are near to us, the Marii, Sullas, Pompeys (I will go no further), — let these compare themselves with Pallas, and they will fall short of the praises accorded to him. Am I to suppose the men who thus decreed to have been humourists, or cravens? I would call them humourists if such humour became a Senate. Cravens, then? But no one is in such a craven condition that he can be forced to such acts. “Was the cause, then, ambition and the yearning for advancement? But who so demented as to wish for advancement at the price of his own and the public disgrace, in a society where the advantage to be derived from the loftiest dignity should consist in being able to take the lead in — eulogising Pallas in the Senate? I pass by the circumstance that the Prætorian insignia are offered to Pallas, though a slave, inasmuch as they are offered by slaves. I pass by their decreeing “that he should not only be exhorted, but actually compelled to the use of golden rings;” for it was opposed to the august dignity of the Senate for a man of Prætorian rank to wear iron ones These are trifling matters, which may be passed over. But this is noteworthy, that “on account of Pallas the
Senate” (and the Senate-house was not purified after this!)—” on Pallas’s account the Senate returns thanks to Caesar, in that his highness himself has bestowed the most honourable mention on him, and has also accorded to the Senate the faculty of testifying towards him its good will.” What indeed could be more glorious for the Senate than that it should appear sufficiently grateful to Pallas? This is added: “That Pallas, to whom all of them, to the best of each man’s abilities, confess their obligations, may enjoy, as he so richly deserves to do, the fruits of his matchless integrity and his matchless energy.” You would suppose that the limits of the Empire had been extended, that armies had been rescued for the State. To this is tacked on, “Inasmuch as to the Senate and the people no more agreeable occasion for their liberality could be exhibited than the good fortune of being able to add to the means of so disinterested and faithful a guardian of the prince’s revenues.” This was at that time the aspiration of the Senate, this was the chief delight of the people, this was the most agreeable occasion for liberality: to have the good fortune to add to the means of Pallas by squandering the public revenues! See what follows: “That it had been the wish of the Senate, for its part, to decree to him a gift of fifteen million sesterces out of the treasury, and the more his mind was remote from desires of this kind, the more earnestly did they pray the Father of the State to compel him to yield to the Senate.” This, to be sure, was alone wanting: that Pallas should be dealt with by public authority; that Pallas in person should be entreated to yield to the Senate; that Cæsar himself should be called in to plead against this arrogant self-denial, and to prevent his spurning the fifteen million sesterces. Spurn them he did — the only way in which, after the public offer to him of so vast a sum, he could show his arrogance still more than by accepting it. Yet the Senate, in a tone of complaint, praised even this act in the following words: “But inasmuch as the most excellent Prince and Father of the State, at the request of Pallas, has willed that that portion of the decree which related to the grant to him out of the treasury of fifteen million sesterces should he annulled; the Senate hereby witnessed, that albeit it had of its own good will, and in accordance with his merits, initiated a decree of the above sum, among the other honours, to Pallas on account of his integrity and diligence; yet, as they do not deem it lawful to set themselves against the will of their prince in any matter, so in this matter too they submit themselves to it.”
Picture to yourself Pallas interposing his veto, as it were, on the decree of the Senate, and restricting the honours paid to himself; refusing the fifteen millions as too much, after accepting the Prætorian insignia as of smaller account. Picture to yourself Cæsar complying with the prayers, or rather the commands, of his freedman in presence of the Senate, for the freedman commands his patron when he is able to petition him in the Senate. Picture to yourself the Senate continually witnessing that it had initiated a decree of this sum, among the other honours, to Pallas, in accordance with his merits and its good will, and that it would have persevered in its intention if it had not been for its compliance with the prince’s will, which it was not lawful to set one’s self against in any matter. So then, in order that Pallas should not carry off the fifteen millions from the treasury, his own modesty and the compliance of the Senate were requisite, which latter, in this particular case, would not have complied if they had thought it lawful not to comply in any matter whatever.
Do you think this is the end? Wait a bit and hear something still stronger. “And inasmuch as it is of advantage that the gracious disposition of the prince, ever prompt to honour and reward the deserving, should be everywhere exhibited to view, and chiefly in those places where the persons charged with the administration of his affairs may be stimulated to imitation, and where the highly proved faithfulness and integrity of Pallas may by his example provoke a zeal for laudable emulation; the message read by the most excellent prince before this most honourable house on the tenth day before the Kalends of February last past, together with the decrees passed by the Senate on these matters, shall be inscribed on brass, and the brass in question shall be affixed to the statue in armour of the late Emperor Julius.” It did not seem enough that the Senate-house should witness such disgraceful proceedings; a place of great resort was selected for publishing them, where contemporaries should read them, and posterity as well. It was decided that the brass should be inscribed with all the honours of this haughty slave, both those which he repudiated and those which (as far as those who decreed them were concerned) he had borne. The Prætorian insignia of Pallas were cut and carved on public and enduring monuments, just for all the world like ancient treaties, just like sacred laws! Such was t
he — how to name the quality I know not — of the prince, of the Senate, of Pallas himself, that they wished to have affixed before the eyes of all, Pallas his impudence, Cæsar his submissiveness, the Senate its baseness. Nor was there any shame felt in veiling this infamy with a show of reason — an exquisite and admirable reason to be sure: — that on the strength of the rewards bestowed on Pallas the others might be provoked to the zeal of emulation! So cheap were honours held, even those which Pallas did not disdain. Yet there were found persons of respectable birth who sought for and desired what they saw given to a freedman and held out to slaves. How glad I am that I did not fall upon those times, of which I am just as much ashamed as if I had lived in them. Nor do I doubt that you will be similarly impressed, for I know you have the soul of an honest man and a freeman. Hence you will he the more ready to think that, though I may have carried my indignation in certain places to a height unsuitable to a letter, yet my complaints are rather below than above the mark.
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7. C. PLINIUS TACITO SUO S.
1 Neque ut magistro magister neque ut discipulo discipulus — sic enim scribis -, sed ut discipulo magister — nam tu magister, ego contra; atque adeo tu in scholam revocas, ego adhuc Saturnalia extendo — librum misisti. 2 Num potui longius hyperbaton facere, atque hoc ipso probare eum esse me qui non modo magister tuus, sed ne discipulus quidem debeam dici? Sumam tamen personam magistri, exseramque in librum tuum ius quod dedisti, eo liberius quod nihil ex me interim missurus sum tibi in quo te ulciscaris. Vale.
7. — TO TACITUS.
Not as one master to another, nor again “as one disciple to another” (for so you write it), but as master to a disciple — for you are the master, I the opposite; more than that, you are recalling me to school, while I am still prolonging my holidays — have you sent your book to me. Come, now, could I have produced a more topsy-turvy sentence than the above? — by this very means proving that I am one who ought not to be called, let alone your master, even your disciple. However, I will take on me the part of master, and exercise on your book the right you have bestowed on me, and all the more freely that I am not going to send you in the meanwhile any writing of mine for you to revenge yourself upon.
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8. C. PLINIUS ROMANO SUO S.
1 Vidistine aliquando Clitumnum fontem? Si nondum — et puto nondum: alioqui narrasses mihi -, vide; quem ego — paenitet tarditatis — proxime vidi. 2 Modicus collis assurgit, antiqua cupressu nemorosus et opacus. Hunc subter exit fons et exprimitur pluribus venis sed imparibus, eluctatusque quem facit gurgitem lato gremio patescit, purus et vitreus, ut numerare iactas stipes et relucentes calculos possis. 3 Inde non loci devexitate, sed ipsa sui copia et quasi pondere impellitur, fons adhuc et iam amplissimum flumen, atque etiam navium patiens; quas obvias quoque et contrario nisu in diversa tendentes transmittit et perfert, adeo validus ut illa qua properat ipse, quamquam per solum planum, remis non adiuvetur, idem aegerrime remis contisque superetur adversus. 4 Iucundum utrumque per iocum ludumque fluitantibus, ut flexerint cursum, laborem otio otium labore variare. Ripae fraxino multa, multa populo vestiuntur, quas perspicuus amnis velut mersas viridi imagine adnumerat. Rigor aquae certaverit nivibus, nec color cedit. 5 Adiacet templum priscum et religiosum. Stat Clitumnus ipse amictus ornatusque praetexta; praesens numen atque etiam fatidicum indicant sortes. Sparsa sunt circa sacella complura, totidemque di. Sua cuique veneratio suum nomen, quibusdam vero etiam fontes. Nam praeter illum quasi parentem ceterorum sunt minores capite discreti; sed flumini miscentur, quod ponte transmittitur. 6 Is terminus sacri profanique: in superiore parte navigare tantum, infra etiam natare concessum. Balineum Hispellates, quibus illum locum Divus Augustus dono dedit, publice praebent, praebent et hospitium. Nec desunt villae quae secutae fluminis amoenitatem margini insistunt. 7 In summa nihil erit, ex quo non capias voluptatem. Nam studebis quoque: leges multa multorum omnibus columnis omnibus parietibus inscripta, quibus fons ille deusque celebratur. Plura laudabis, non nulla ridebis; quamquam tu vero, quae tua humanitas, nulla ridebis. Vale.
8. — TO ROMANUS.
Have you seen, at any time, the source of the Clitumnus? If you have not as yet — and I fancy you have not, for otherwise you would have told me of it — go and see what I (and I am ashamed of having been so slow about it) lately saw. There rises a hill of moderate size, wooded and shaded by ancient cypresses, at the base of which the spring emerges, forced out through many but unequal channels, and after struggling through a troubled pool of its own formation, opens out to the view with broad expanse, clear and transparent, so that you are able to count the small coins thrown into it and the glistening pebbles. Thence it is impelled, not by the slope of the ground, but by its own very abundance, and, as it were, weight; now but a source, now already a noble river, and one actually capable of bearing ships, which, even when they come in opposite directions, and with contrary effort are holding a different course, it suffers to pass each other, and carries on their way. Such is the strength and rapidity of its current, though over a plane surface, that it is not assisted by oars, and, when it is faced, it is only with extreme difficulty that it can be overcome by oars or punt-poles. It is an agreeable change for those who are afloat for sport and pastime to vary toil by repose or repose by toil, according as they shift their course. The banks are clothed with a quantity of ashes and poplars, which the transparent river reflects in succession by so many green images, just as though they were submerged in it. The coldness of the water might vie with that of snow, and its colour does not yield to that of snow.
Hard by is a temple ancient and venerable. Clitumnus stands there in person, clothed and adorned with the prætexta. Oracular responses indicate the prophetic power in addition to the presence of the divinity.’ Scattered around are a number of chapels and as many gods. Each of these has his own worship and his own name, some of them even their own springs. For besides that spring, which is, as it were, the parent of the rest, there are smaller ones, separated from the fountain-head, but nevertheless flowing into the river, which is spanned by a bridge. This marks the boundary between what is sacred and what is open to ordinary use. Above bridge navigation only is permitted; below, one may bathe as well. The people of Hispellum, to whom the late Emperor Augustus assigned this locality, furnish baths at the public expense, and they also furnish lodgings. Nor is there a lack of villas, which, owing to the attractions of the river, stand on its borders. In short, there will be nothing there from which you may not derive pleasure; you will even be able to study, and will read a variety of productions by a variety of people, inscribed on every column and every wall in honour of the spring and the god. Many of these you will approve of, some you will laugh at — and yet, no; you, with your usual good-nature, will laugh at none of them.
Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Younger (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics) Page 118
