Delphi Complete Works of Pliny the Younger (Illustrated) (Delphi Ancient Classics)

by Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus Pliny the Younger

  28. C. PLINIUS ROMANO SUO S.

  1 Post longum tempus epistulas tuas, sed tres pariter recepi, omnes elegantissimas amantissimas, et quales a te venire praesertim desideratas oportebat. Quarum una iniungis mihi iucundissimum ministerium, ut ad Plotinam sanctissimam feminam litterae tuae perferantur: perferentur. 2 Eadem commendas Popilium Artemisium: statim praestiti quod petebat. Indicas etiam modicas te vindemias collegisse: communis haec mihi tecum, quamquam in diversissima parte terrarum, querela est. 3 Altera epistula nuntias multa te nunc dictare nunc scribere, quibus nos tibi repraesentes. Gratias ago; agerem magis si me illa ipsa, quae scribis aut dictas, legere voluisses. Et erat aequum ut te mea ita me tua scripta cognoscere, etiamsi ad alium quam ad me pertinerent. 4 Polliceris in fine, cum certius de vitae nostrae ordinatione aliquid audieris, futurum te fugitivum rei familiaris statimque ad nos evolaturum, qui iam tibi compedes nectimus, quas perfringere nullo modo possis. 5 Tertia epistula continebat esse tibi redditam orationem pro Clario eamque visam uberiorem, quam dicente me audiente te fuerit. Est uberior; multa enim postea inserui. Adicis alias te litteras curiosius scriptas misisse; an acceperim quaeris. Non accepi et accipere gestio. Proinde prima quaque occasione mitte appositis quidem usuris, quas ego — num parcius possum? — centesimas computabo. Vale.

  28. — TO ROMANUS.

  After a long interval I have received your letters — three at the same time, however — all of them very choice and friendly compositions, and such as letters coming from you should be, particularly when they are so greatly desired. In one of these you impose on me a most agreeable service, that of forwarding your communications to that august lady Plotina. They shall be forwarded. In the same letter you commend to me Popilius Artemisius. I immediately granted his request. You also intimate to me that you have got in but a moderate vintage. This complaint is common to both of us, though in such widely different parts of the world.

  In your second letter you announce that you are at times dictating, and at others writing, a good deal having for its object to bring me before your mind. I thank you, and would thank you still more if you had allowed me to read the actual compositions which you are writing or dictating. And it would be fair that I should be made acquainted with your writings, just as you have been with mine, even although they had related to some other person than myself. At the end, you promise — so soon as you shall have heard anything definite about my arrangements — that you will play the runaway to your belongings and forthwith fly off to me, who am already preparing chains for you such as you will in nowise be able to break through.

  The third letter contained news that my oration for Clarius had reached you, and that it had seemed to you fuller than when you heard me speak it. It is fuller; for I subsequently made many additions to it. You add that you sent me another letter more carefully composed, and you ask whether I have received it. I have not received it, and I long to do so. Accordingly, send me a copy on the very first opportunity, with something added to it by way of interest, which I shall compute (can I put it lower?) at twelve per cent.

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  29. C. PLINIUS RUSTICO SUO S.

  1 Ut satius unum aliquid insigniter facere quam plura mediocriter, ita plurima mediocriter, si non possis unum aliquid insigniter. Quod intuens ego variis me studiorum generibus nulli satis confisus experior. 2 Proinde, cum hoc vel illud leges, ita singulis veniam ut non singulis dabis. An ceteris artibus excusatio in numero, litteris durior lex, in quibus difficilior effectus est? Quid autem ego de venia quasi ingratus? Nam si ea facilitate proxima acceperis qua priora, laus potius speranda quam venia obsecranda est. Mihi tamen venia sufficit. Vale.

  29. — TO RUSTICUS.

  Just as it is better to excel in any one pursuit than to do a number of things moderately well, so it is better to do a number of things moderately well, if you are unable to excel in any one. Observing this, I try my hand at various kinds of literature, not being sufficiently confident about any of them. So when you read this or that of mine, allow for each single composition as not standing by itself. Pray, in the case of the other arts, is the number of productions an excuse for shortcomings; and is there to be a harder law in the case of literature, in which the execution is so much more difficult? Yet why do I talk of allowance, like an ingrate? For if you receive my newest productions with the same favour as the preceding ones, I have rather to hope for praise than to supplicate allowance. However, the latter will he sufficient for me.

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  30. C. PLINIUS GEMINO SUO S.

  1 Laudas mihi et frequenter praesens et nunc per epistulas Nonium tuum, quod sit liberalis in quosdam: et ipse laudo, si tamen non in hos solos. Volo enim eum, qui sit vere liberalis, tribuere patriae propinquis, affinibus amicis, sed amicis dico pauperibus, non ut isti qui iis potissimum donant, qui donare maxime possunt. 2 Hos ego viscatis hamatisque muneribus non sua promere puto sed aliena corripere. Sunt ingenio simili qui quod huic donant auferunt illi, famamque liberalitatis avaritia petunt. 3 Primum est autem suo esse contentum, deinde, quos praecipue scias indigere, sustentantem foventemque orbe quodam socialitatis ambire. Quae cuncta si facit iste, usquequaque laudandus est; si unum aliquid, minus quidem, laudandus tamen: 4 tam rarum est etiam imperfectae liberalitatis exemplar. Ea invasit homines habendi cupido, ut possideri magis quam possidere videantur. Vale.

  30. — TO GEMINUS.

  You praise your friend Nonius to me — often by word of mouth, and now by letter — for being so generous towards certain people. And so do I praise him, provided he is not so towards these alone. For I will have it that the truly generous man gives to his country, his relations, his connections, his friends; I speak of his ‘poor friends, not like those who choose as the objects of their donations such as can best make a return. I consider these people with their presents — all smeared with bird-lime, and furnished with a hook — to be not so much bringing forth out of their own as clutching at other people’s property. Those are of a like character, who take from one what they give to another, seeking through avarice a reputation for generosity. Now, the principal thing is to be content with one’s own; after that, to support, to cherish, and, as it were, to encompass in a circle of fellowship those whom one knows to be particularly in need. If your friend does all these things, he is thoroughly to be commended; if any one of them, to a smaller degree indeed, yet still to be commended, so rare is the type of even imperfect generosity. Such a passion for getting has seized on men that they seem to be taken possession of rather than to be possessors.

  Detailed table of contents listing each letter

  31. C. PLINIUS SARDO SUO S.

  1 Postquam a te recessi, non minus tecum, quam cum ad te fui. Legi enim librum tuum identidem repetens ea maxime — non enim mentiar -, quae de me scripsisti, in quibus quidem percopiosus fuisti. Quam multa, quam varia, quam non eadem de eodem nec tamen diversa dixisti! 2 Laudem pariter et gratias agam? Neutrum satis possum et, si possem, timerem ne arrogans esset ob ea laudare, ob quae gratias agerem. Unum illud addam, omnia mihi tanto laudabiliora visa quanto iucundiora, tanto iucundiora quanto laudabiliora erant. Vale.

  31. — TO SARDUS.

  Since leaving you, I have been no less in your company than when with you. For I have read your book, reperusing ever and anon those parts chiefly (I will not deny the truth) in which you have written about me. In these indeed you have been particularly copious. How many and how varied the things you have said — things which, though about the same person, are not the same, and yet do not contradict each other. Shall I commend you, and thank you at the same time? I can do neither sufficiently, and, even if I could, should fear it might be presumptuous to commend you on account of what I had to thank you for. This only will I add, that everything in your book seemed to me the more commendable in proportion as it was agreeable to me, and the more agreeable in proportion as it was commendable.

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nbsp; 32. C. PLINIUS TITIANO SUO S.

  Quid agis, quid acturus es? Ipse vitam iucundissimam — id est, otiosissimam — vivo. Quo fit, ut scribere longiores epistulas nolim, velim legere, illud tamquam delicatus, hoc tamquam otiosus. Nihil est enim aut pigrius delicatis aut curiosius otiosis. Vale.

  32. — TO TITIANUS.

  What are you about? And what are you going to be about? For my part, I am leading the pleasantest, that is, the idlest, of lives. Hence it comes to pass that I don’t like writing long letters, and like reading them — the former in my character of an exquisite, and the latter in that of an idler. For there is nothing more slothful than your exquisite, or more inquisitive than your idler.

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  33. C. PLINIUS CANINIO SUO S.

  1 Incidi in materiam veram sed simillimam fictae, dignamque isto laetissimo altissimo planeque poetico ingenio; incidi autem, dum super cenam varia miracula hinc inde referuntur. Magna auctori fides: tametsi quid poetae cum fide? Is tamen auctor, cui bene vel historiam scripturus credidisses.

  2 Est in Africa Hipponensis colonia mari proxima. Adiacet navigabile stagnum; ex hoc in modum fluminis aestuarium emergit, quod vice alterna, prout aestus aut repressit aut impulit, nunc infertur mari, nunc redditur stagno. 3 Omnis hic aetas piscandi navigandi atque etiam natandi studio tenetur, maxime pueri, quos otium lususque sollicitat. His gloria et virtus altissime provehi: victor ille, qui longissime ut litus ita simul natantes reliquit. 4 Hoc certamine puer quidam audentior ceteris in ulteriora tendebat. Delphinus occurrit, et nunc praecedere puerum nunc sequi nunc circumire, postremo subire deponere iterum subire, trepidantemque perferre primum in altum, mox flectit ad litus, redditque terrae et aequalibus. 5 Serpit per coloniam fama; concurrere omnes, ipsum puerum tamquam miraculum aspicere, interrogare audire narrare. Postero die obsident litus, prospectant mare et si quid est mari simile. Natant pueri, inter hos ille, sed cautius. Delphinus rursus ad tempus, rursus ad puerum. Fugit ille cum ceteris. Delphinus, quasi invitet et revocet, exsilit mergitur, variosque orbes implicat expeditque. 6 Hoc altero die, hoc tertio, hoc pluribus, donec homines innutritos mari subiret timendi pudor. Accedunt et alludunt et appellant, tangunt etiam pertrectantque praebentem. Crescit audacia experimento. Maxime puer, qui primus expertus est, adnatat nanti, insilit tergo, fertur referturque, agnosci se amari putat, amat ipse; neuter timet, neuter timetur; huius fiducia, mansuetudo illius augetur. 7 Nec non alii pueri dextra laevaque simul eunt hortantes monentesque. Ibat una — id quoque mirum — delphinus alius, tantum spectator et comes. Nihil enim simile aut faciebat aut patiebatur, sed alterum illum ducebat reducebat, ut puerum ceteri pueri. 8 Incredibile, tam verum tamen quam priora, delphinum gestatorem collusoremque puerorum in terram quoque extrahi solitum, harenisque siccatum, ubi incaluisset in mare revolvi. 9 Constat Octavium Avitum, legatum proconsulis, in litus educto religione prava superfudisse unguentum, cuius illum novitatem odoremque in altum refugisse, nec nisi post multos dies visum languidum et maestum, mox redditis viribus priorem lasciviam et solita ministeria repetisse. 10 Confluebant omnes ad spectaculum magistratus, quorum adventu et mora modica res publica novis sumptibus atterebatur. Postremo locus ipse quietem suam secretumque perdebat: placuit occulte interfici, ad quod coibatur. 11 Haec tu qua miseratione, qua copia deflebis ornabis attolles! Quamquam non est opus affingas aliquid aut astruas; sufficit ne ea quae sunt vera minuantur. Vale.

  33. — TO CANINIUS.

  I have fallen in with a subject which, though true, bears a close resemblance to fiction, and is worthy of your lively and elevated and thoroughly poetical genius. I fell in with it, moreover, among a variety of marvels which were being related by different guests at a dinner party. The authority for it is a man of the highest veracity; though, by the by, what has a poet got to do with veracity? However, this particular authority is such as you might have trusted, even if you had designed to write history.

  There is in Africa a colonial town named Hippo, close to the sea. Adjoining it is a navigable lagoon, out of which flows an estuary after the manner of a river, whose waters are alternately carried to the sea or returned to the lagoon, according as they are driven back or impelled by the tide. The inhabitants of every age are strongly addicted to fishing, boating, and likewise swimming; particularly the boys, who are attracted by idleness and sport. In their eyes, it is glory and renown to swim out a long way; the victor is he who has left the shore, as well as his fellows, the furthest distance behind him. In this kind of contest, a certain lad, bolder than the rest, was getting far out to sea. Suddenly a dolphin met him, and at one time went in front of, at another followed, and then swam round him, at last took him on his back, then put him off, then took him on again, next bore the trembling lad seaward, and presently turning back to the shore, restored him to terra firma and his companions.

  The report of this crept through the town; all the inhabitants flocked up and contemplated the lad himself as a kind of prodigy, they questioned him, and listened to him, and repeated his story. Next day they took possession of the shore, and gazed upon the sea and everything that looked like sea. The boys swam, and among them the one in question, but with greater caution. Again to time came the dolphin, and again he made for the boy, who fled with his companions. The dolphin, as though inviting and recalling him, leapt out of the water, and dived and twined and untwined himself in a variety of circles. The same thing happened the next day, and a third day, and on several days, till these men, brought up to the sea, began to be ashamed of their fears. They approached and called to him jestingly; they even handled him, and he submitted to be stroked. Their boldness grew by use. But, before all others, the boy who had had the first experience of him, swam by him, jumped on his back, was carried to and fro, and, fancying he was recognised and loved by him, was himself taken with love for the dolphin. Neither of them is afraid, neither is an object of fear, the confidence of the one and the tameness of the other go on increasing. Other boys too, on the right and left, swim with their friend, cheering and exhorting him. What is also marvellous, another dolphin accompanied this one, but only in the character of a spectator and attendant, for he neither performed nor submitted to anything of the same kind; he merely led the other and escorted him back, just as the rest of the boys did with this boy. Though it seems incredible (yet it is just as true as what has preceded), this dolphin, that carried and played with boys, would often leave his element for the land, and after drying himself in the sands, would, as soon as he had grown warm, roll back into the sea. It is ascertained that Octavius Avitus the Pro-consular Legate, led by a vicious superstition, poured ointment on him after he had been attracted to the shore, and that the strangeness of the thing and the smell caused him to escape back into the deep, and that he was not seen for many days afterwards, and then languid and dull; yet soon afterwards he regained his spirits, and resumed his former friskiness and his accustomed offices. There was a confluence of all the officials of the province to see the sight, whose arrival and sojourn were exhausting the modest revenues of the town in unwonted expenses. Finally, the place itself was parting with its repose and retired character. It was decided to put to death privately the object of all this assemblage.

  With what tender commiseration, with what exuberance, will you weep over and embellish and exalt this tale! There is, however, no need for your inventing or adding anything fresh to it. It will suffice if what is true suffer no diminution.

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  34. C. PLINIUS TRANQUILLO SUO S.

  1 Explica aestum meum: audio me male legere, dumtaxat versus; rationes enim commode, sed tanto minus versus. Cogito ergo recitaturus familiaribus amicis experiri libertum meum. Hoc quoque familiare, quod elegi non bene sed melius — scio — lecturum, si tamen non fuerit perturbatus. 2 Est enim tam novus lector quam ego poeta. Ipse nescio, quid illo legente interim faciam, sedeam defixus et mutus et similis otioso an, ut quidam, quae pronuntiabit, murmure oculis manu prosequar. Sed puto me non mi
nus male saltare quam legere. Iterum dicam, explica aestum meum vereque rescribe, num sit melius pessime legere quam ista vel non facere vel facere. Vale.

  34. — TO TRANQUILLUS.

  Relieve me of my difficulty. I hear that I read badly — poetry at least — orations, indeed, well enough, and, on that very account, poetry less well. So being about to have a recitation before some intimate friends, I am thinking of making trial of my freedman. This, too, is a mark of intimacy that I have selected a man who will not read well, though he will read better than me, provided he does not become confused, for he is as unpractised a reader as I am a poet. Now what I myself am to do all the time he is reading I know not. Should I sit wrapt and mute and like a person with nothing in hand? Or, after the fashion of some, should I accompany his delivery with mutterings and motions of the eyes and hands? But I fancy I am as bad at pantomime as at reading. Again, I say, relieve me of my difficulty, and write me back word candidly whether it be better to read execrably than to be either doing or not doing such things as these.

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  35. C. PLINIUS ATRIO SUO S.

  1 Librum, quem misisti, recepi et gratias ago. Sum tamen hoc tempore occupatissimus. Ideo nondum eum legi, cum alioqui valdissime cupiam. Sed eam reverentiam cum litteris ipsis tum scriptis tuis debeo, ut sumere illa nisi vacuo animo irreligiosum putem. 2 Diligentiam tuam in retractandis operibus valde probo. Est tamen aliquis modus, primum quod nimia cura deterit magis quam emendat, deinde quod nos a recentioribus revocat simulque nec absolvit priora et incohare posteriora non patitur. Vale.