BOOK EIGHT
1. To Septicius Clams
I had an easy journey, apart from the fact that some of my people were taken ill in the intense heat. Indeed, my reader Encolpius (the one who is our joy for work or play) found the dust so irritating to his throat that he spat blood, and it will be a sad blow to him and a great loss to me if this makes him unfit for his services to literature when they are his main recommendation. Who else will read and appreciate my efforts or hold my attention as he does? But the gods promise happier things. The haemorrhage has stopped and the pain is less severe; and he is a good patient, we are taking every care of him, and the doctors are attentive. In addition, the healthy climate here and the complete rest and quiet can provide as much for a cure as for a holiday.
2. To Calvisius Rufus
Other people visit their estates to come away richer than before, but I go only to return the poorer. I had sold my grape harvest to the dealers, who were eager to buy, when the price quoted at the time was tempting and prospects seemed good. Their hopes were frustrated. It would have been simple to give them all the same rebate, but hardly fair, and I hold the view that one of the most important things in life is to practise justice in private as in public life, in small matters as in great, and apply it to one’s own affairs no less than to other people’s. For if we say with the Stoics that ‘all offences are equal’ the same applies to merits. Accordingly I returned to everyone an eighth of the sum he had spent so that ‘none should depart without a gift of mine’.1 Then I made a special provision for those who had invested very large sums in their purchase, since they had been of greater service to me and theirs was the greater loss. I therefore allowed everyone whose purchases had cost him more than 10,000 sesterces a tenth of anything he had spent above the 10,000, in addition to the original eighth which was a sort of general grant.
I am afraid I have put it badly; let me try to make my calculations clearer. Suppose someone had offered the sum of 15,000 sesterces; he would receive an eighth of 15,000, plus a tenth of 5,000. Moreover, in view of the fact that some people had paid down large instalments of what they owed, while others had paid little or nothing, I thought it most unfair to treat them all with the same generosity in granting a rebate when they had not been equally conscientious in discharging their debts. Once more, then, I allowed another tenth of the sum received to those who had paid. This seemed a suitable way both of expressing my gratitude to each individual according to his past merits, and of encouraging them all not only to buy from me in the future but also to pay their debts.
My system – or my good nature – has cost me a lot, but it has been worth, it. The whole district is praising the novelty of my rebate and the way in which it was carried out, and the people I classified and graded instead of measuring all with the same rod, so to speak, have departed feeling obliged to me in proportion to their honest worth and satisfied that I am not a person who ‘holds in equal honour the wicked and the good’.1
3. To Julius Sparsus
You say that the book I sent you the other day has given you more pleasure than any of my other works. A learned friend of mine is of the same opinion, and this encourages me to think that neither of you is mistaken; for it is unlikely that you would both be wrong, and I like to flatter myself. In fact I always want my latest work to be thought my masterpiece; consequently I have turned against the one you have in favour of a speech which I have just published, and which you shall see as soon as I can find someone reliable to bring it. Now I have roused your expectations, but I fear they may be disappointed when you have the speech in your hands. Meanwhile wait for its arrival with the intention of liking it and you may find you do so after all.
4. To Caninius Rufus
It is an excellent idea of yours to write about the Dacian war. There is no subject which offers such scope and such a wealth of original material, no subject so poetic and almost legendary although its facts are true. You will describe new rivers set flowing over the land, new bridges built across rivers, and camps clinging to sheer precipices; you will tell of a king driven from his capital and finally to death, but courageous to the end; you will record a double triumph, one the first over a nation hitherto unconquered, the other a final victory.
There is only one difficulty, but a serious one. To find a style of expression worthy of the subject is an immense undertaking, difficult even for a genius like yours, though this is capable of attaining supreme heights and surpasses itself in each magnificent work you have produced. Another problem arises out of the barbaric names, especially that of the king himself where the uncouth sounds will not fit into Greek verse; but every difficulty can be reduced by skill and application even if it cannot be entirely resolved. Besides, if Homer is permitted to contract, lengthen, and modify the flexible syllables of the Greek language to suit the even flow of his verse, why should you be denied a similar licence, especially when it is a necessity and no affectation? So call the gods to your aid, as a poet may, without forgetting that divine hero whose exploits, achievements and wisdom you are going to celebrate; slacken your sheets, spread sail, and now, if ever, let the full tide of your genius carry you along. (Why shouldn’t I be poetical with a poet?)
Now I have a stipulation to make; send me each section in turn as you finish it, or better still send it unfinished in its rough draught as it is first put together. You will object that a collection of incomplete fragments cannot give the same pleasure as the finished whole. But knowing this I shall judge them only as a beginning, examine them as parts of a whole, and keep them in my desk to await your final revision. Give me this further pledge of your affection – let me into the secrets you would prefer no one to know. To sum up, I may perhaps be better able to approve and admire your work if you are slow and cautious about sending it, but I shall love and value yourself the more if you can send it without delays and misgivings.
5. To Rosianus Geminus
Our friend Macrinus1 has had a terrible blow; he has lost his wife, one who would have been exemplary even in former times, after they had lived together for thirty-nine years without a quarrel or misunderstanding. She always treated her husband with the greatest respect, while deserving the highest regard herself, and she seemed to have assembled in herself the virtues of every stage of life in the highest degree. Macrinus has indeed the great consolation of having possessed such a treasure so long, though it is this which makes his loss so hard to bear; for our enjoyment of pleasure increases the pain of deprivation. So I shall continue to be anxious about him, for I love him dearly, until he can permit himself some distraction and allow his wound to heal; nothing can do this but acceptance of the inevitable, lapse of time, and surfeit of grief.
6. To Montanus
You should have heard from my last letter2 that I had recently seen a monument to Pallas with this inscription:’ To him the Senate decreed in return for his loyal services to his patrons, the insignia of a praetor and the sum of fifteen million sesterces, but he thought fit to accept the distinction only.’ I took the trouble afterwards to look up the actual decree of the Senate, and found it so verbose and fulsome in tone that the insolence of this inscription seemed modest and positively humble by comparison. All our national heroes put together – and I don’t mean those of the past, with their titles of Africanus, Achaicus, and Numantinus, but the Marii, Sullas, and Pompeys of recent times, to name no more – would still fall short of Pallas’s fame. Am I to suppose this decree expresses the wit or the misery of its authors? Wit is unbecoming to the Senate; and no man’s misery need bring him to this extremity. Then was it self-interest or desire for advancement? But who is so crazy as to desire advancement won through his own and his country’s dishonour, in a State where the chief privilege of its highest office is that of being the first to pay compliments to Pallas in the Senate?
I say nothing of this offer of the praetorian insignia to a slave, for they were slaves themselves who made the offer, nothing of the resolution that he should not only be begged but even compelled to wear a gold ring (it would lower the prestige of the Senate for a praetorian to wear the slave’s iron one): these are trivial details which may well be set aside. This is what must stand on record; on behalf of Pallas the Senate (and the House has not been subsequently purged of its shame) – on behalf of Pallas the Senate thanked the Emperor for his own recognition of the man in bestowing high honour, and for giving them the opportunity of testifying their appreciation. For what could be more splendid for the Senate than to show suitable gratitude to Pallas? The resolution continues:’… that Pallas, to whom all to the utmost of their ability acknowledge their obligation, should reap the just reward of his outstanding loyalty and devotion to duty.’ (One might suppose he had extended the boundaries of the Empire or brought home the armies he had commanded.) Then follows: ‘Since the Senate and the Roman people could have no more gratifying occasion for liberality than the opportunity to add to the means of this self-denying and faithful custodian of the imperial finances….’ This then was the will of the Senate, the chief pleasure of the people, the highly gratifying occasion for liberality – to add to Pallas’s fortune by squandering public funds.
What next? The Senate wished to vote him a grant of fifteen million sesterces from the Treasury, and, knowing how far removed he was from all desires of this kind, the more urgently besought the Father of the State to compel him to comply with their wishes. In fact the only thing lacking was for Pallas to be officially approached and begged to comply, for the Emperor himself to champion the cause and plead with that insolent self-denial in order that the fifteen million should not be rejected. But Pallas did reject it; a great fortune had been offered him in the name of the State, and this was his only means of showing greater contempt than if he had accepted it. Yet even this the Senate met with further compliments, this time in a reproachful tone: ‘But inasmuch as the noble Emperor and Father of the State at Pallas’s request has expressed his wish that the clause referring to the grant of fifteen million sesterces from the Treasury should be rescinded, the Senate declares that though it had freely and justly taken steps to grant this sum to Pallas amongst the other distinctions offered him on account of his loyalty and devotion to duty, yet since it holds that in nothing is it lawful to oppose the Emperor, in this matter also it must bow to his wishes.’
Picture Pallas interposing his veto, as it were, on the Senate’s decree, setting limits to his own honours, and refusing fifteen million as excessive while accepting the praetorian insignia as if they meant less! Picture the Emperor before the assembled Senate carrying out his freedman’s request or rather command – for this is what such a request made before the Senate amounts to. Picture the Senate going so far as to declare that it had freely and justly taken steps to grant Pallas this sum amongst his other honouis, and that it would have carried out its intention but for the need of bowing to the Emperor’s wishes which could not on any point be lawfully opposed. Thus, to permit Pallas to decline this fifteen million from the Treasury, it took the combined forces of his own discretion and the Senate’s obedience, which it would never have shown on this occasion had it believed that disobedience were lawful on any point.
Is this all, do you think? Wait and hear something better still. ‘Inasmuch as it is expedient that the Emperor’s generous promptitude to praise and reward merit should everywhere be published and particularly in places where those entrusted with the administration of his affairs may be encouraged to follow the examples set them, and where the example of Pallas’s proved loyalty and integrity may inspire others to honourable rivalry, it is resolved that the statement made by the noble Emperor before this distinguished House on 23 January last, together with the resolutions passed by the Senate concerning this matter, shall be engraved on a bronze tablet and that tablet shall be affixed to the mailed statue of the deified Julius Caesar.’ So it was not enough for these disgraceful proceedings to be witnessed by the walls of the Senate house; the most frequented spot in Rome was chosen to display them, where they could be read by everyone, today and ever after. A resolution was passed that all the honours of this insolent slave should be inscribed on bronze, both those he had refused and those he had accepted as far as those who conferred them had the power to do so. The praetorian insignia granted to Pallas were engraved and cut on a public monument for all time as if they were an ancient covenant or a sacred law. To such lengths did the Emperor, the Senate, and Pallas himself push their – I can’t think of a word to express their conduct – as if they intended to set up a record in the sight of all, Pallas of his insolence, the Emperor of his complaisance, the Senate of its degradation! Nor were they ashamed to find a reason to justify their disgrace, and a splendid reason too, ‘so that by the reward given to Pallas others might be inspired to rival him’! Honours were then to be so cheap, the honours which Pallas did not disdain; and yet people of good family could be found who were fired by ambition for distinctions which they saw granted to freedmen and promised to slaves.
How glad I am that my lot did not fall in those days – for which I blush as if I had lived in them. I am sure you will feel the same, knowing your lively sympathy and honest mind; so that, though in some passages I may have let my indignation carry me beyond the bounds of a letter, you will readily believe that I have suppressed my feelings rather than exaggerated them.
7. To Cornelius Tacitus
It was not as one master to another, nor, as you say, as one pupil to another, but as a master to his pupil (for you are master, I am pupil, and so you call me back to school while I am still keeping the Saturnalia) that you sent me your book. Could I write a longer hyperbaton than that, and thereby prove that so far from being your master I do not even deserve to be called your pupil? But I will play the part of master and exercise the authority you have given me over your book; the more freely as for the moment I have nothing of my own to send you on which you can take your revenge.
8. To Voconius Romanus
Have you ever seen the source of the Clitumnus?1 If not (and I fancy not, or you would have told me) do visit it as I did the other day. I am only sorry I put off seeing it so long.
There is a fair-sized hill which is densely wooded with ancient cypresses; at the foot of this the spring rises and gushes out through several channels of different size, and when its eddies have subsided it broadens out into a pool as clear as glass. You can count the coins which have been thrown in and the pebbles shining at the bottom. Then it is carried on, not by any downward slope of the land but by its own volume and weight of water: one minute it is still a spring and the next a broad river navigable for boats to which it can give a passage even when two are moving in opposite directions and must pass each other. The current is so strong that although the ground remains level, a boat travelling downstream is hurried along without needing its oars, while it is very difficult to make any headway upstream with oars and poles combined. Anyone boating for pleasure can enjoy hard work alternating with easy movement simply by a change of course.
The banks are clothed with ash trees and poplars, whose green reflections can be counted in the clear stream as if they were planted there. The water is as cold and as sparkling as snow. Close by is a holy temple of great antiquity in which is a standing image of the god Clitumnus himself clad in a magistrate’s bordered robe; the written oracles lying there prove the presence and prophetic powers of his divinity. All round are a number of small shrines, each containing its god and having its own name and cult, and some of them also their own springs, for as well as the parent stream there are smaller ones which have separate sources but afterwards join the river. The bridge which spans it marks the sacred water off from the ordinary stream: above the bridge boats only are allowed, while below bathing is also permitted. The people of Hispellum,1 to whom the deified Emperor Augustus presented the site, maintain a bathing place at the town’s expense and also provide an inn; and there are several houses picturesquely situated along the river bank. Everything in fact will delight you, and you can also find something to read: you can study the numerous inscriptions in honour of the spring and the god which many hands have written on every pillar and wall. Most of them you will admire, but some will make you laugh – though I know you are really too charitable to laugh at any of them.
9. To Cornelius Ursus
It is a long time since I have had a book or a pen in my hand, a long time since I have known what peace and quiet are or even known that lovely, lazy state of doing and being nothing; so completely has the pressure of my friends’ business kept me from either leaving Rome or working at my books. For no such work is important enough to justify neglect of the claims of friendship, a duty which these same books tell us to observe with scrupulous care.
10. To Calpurnius Fabatus, his wife’s grandfather
I know how anxious you are for us to give you a great-grandchild, so you will be all the more sorry to hear that your granddaughter has had a miscarriage. Being young and inexperienced she did not realize she was pregnant, failed to take proper precautions, and did several things which were better left undone. She has had a severe lesson, and paid for her mistake by seriously endangering her life; so that although you must inevitably feel it hard for your old age to be robbed of a descendant already on the way, you should thank the gods for sparing your granddaughter’s life even though they denied you the child for the present. They will surely grant us children later on, and we may take hope from this evidence of her fertility though the proof has been unfortunate.
I am giving you the same advice and encouragement as I use on myself, for your desire for great-grandchildren cannot be keener than mine for children. Their descent from both of us should make their road to office easy; I can leave them a well-known name and an established ancestry, if only they may be born and turn our present grief to joy.
11. To Calpurnia Hispulla
Remembering how you love your brother’s daughter more tenderly than a mother, I feel that I ought to begin with the second half of my news, so that happiness may come first and leave no room for anxiety. And yet I am afraid your relief will turn to fear again, and your joy at hearing that your niece is out of danger will be tempered by your alarm at her narrow escape. By now her good spirits are returning as she feels herself restored to herself and to me, and she is beginning to measure the danger she has been through by her progress towards recovery. The danger was indeed grave – I hope I may safely say so now – through no fault of her own, but perhaps of her youth. Hence her miscarriage, a sad proof of unsuspected pregnancy. So though you are still without a grandchild of your brother’s to comfort you for his loss, you must remember that this consolation is postponed, not denied us. We build our hopes on her, and she has been spared. Meanwhile, explain this accident to your father, as it is the sort women can more easily understand.
12. To Cornelius Minicianus
Today is the one day I must be free: Titinius Capito is giving a reading, which it is my duty – or perhaps my urgent desire – to attend. He is a splendid personality who should be numbered among the shining lights of our generation; a patron of literature and admirer of literary men, whom he supports and helps in their careers. To many who are authors he is a haven of refuge and protection, while he is an example to all; it is he in fact who has restored and reformed literature itself when it was on the decline. He lends his house for public readings, and is wonderfully generous about attending those which are held elsewhere; at any rate he has never missed one of mine, provided that he was in Rome at the time. It would then be all the more disgraceful in me to fail to show the gratitude I have every good reason to feel. If I were engaged in a lawsuit I should feel bound to the man who stood bail for me; so now when literature is absorbing all my thoughts, shall I feel less bound to the one whose unfailing attentiveness to me gives him a special – if I mayn’t say a sole – claim on me? But even if I owed Capito no return, no exchange of services, I should still be persuaded by the greatness of his noble genius which can combine tenderness with austerity, or else by the dignity of his theme. He is writing on the deaths of famous men, some of whom were very dear to me; so I feel that I am performing a pious duty in being present at something like their funeral orations when I could not attend their funerals: a tribute no less sincere for being thus delayed.
13. To Genialis
I am glad to hear that you have been reading my published speeches with your father. It will help your own progress if you learn from a man of his accomplishments what to admire and what to criticize, and at the same time are taught the habit of speaking the truth. You have your model before you, in whose footsteps you should tread, and are fortunate indeed to be blessed with a living example who is both the best possible and your close relative: in short, to have for imitation the very man whom Nature intended you to resemble most.
14. To Titius Aristo
As you are such an authority on civil and constitutional law, including senatorial procedure, I am particularly anxious to hear whether or not you think I made a mistake at a recent meeting of the Senate. It is too late to be put right about past events, but I should like to know what to do in future should any similar situation arise. You will wonder why I am asking a question I ought to be able to answer myself. The fact is we have forgotten our knowledge of senatorial procedure, as of other honest practices, in the servitude of former times; very few people have the patience and will-power to learn what is never likely to be of any practical use, and it is besides difficult to remember what you have learned unless you put it into practice. So, now that Liberty is restored, she finds us awkward and inexperienced; carried away by her charms we are compelled to act in certain ways before we understand them.
In ancient times it was the recognized custom for us to learn from our elders by watching their behaviour as well as listening to their advice, thus acquiring the principles on which to act subsequently ourselves and to hand on in our turn to our juniors. Hence young men began their early training with military service, so that they might grow accustomed to command by obeying, and learn how to lead by following others; hence as candidates for office they stood at the door of the Senate house and watched the course of State councils before taking part in them. Everyone had a teacher in his own father, or, if he was fatherless, in some older man of distinction who took his father’s place. Thus men learned by example (the surest method of instruction) the powers of the proposer, the rights of expressing an opinion, the authority of office, and the privileges of ordinary members; they learned when to give way and when to stand firm, how long to speak and when to keep silence, how to distinguish between conflicting proposals and how to introduce an amendment, in short the whole of senatorial procedure. For our own generation it was different. Though our early manhood was spent in camp, it was at a time when merit was under suspicion and apathy an asset, when officers lacked influence and soldiers respect, when there was neither authority nor obedience, and the whole system was slack, disorganized and chaotic, better forgotten than remembered. We too were spectators in the Senate, but in a Senate which was apprehensive and dumb since it was dangerous to voice a genuine opinion and pitiable to express a forced one. What could be learned at that time, what profit could there be in learning, when the Senate was summoned to idle away its time or to perpetuate some vile crime, and was kept sitting for a joke or its own humiliation; when it could never pass a serious resolution, though often one with tragic consequences? On becoming senators we took part in these evils and continued to witness and endure them for many years, until our spirits were blunted, broken and destroyed with lingering effect; so that it is only a short time (the happier the time the shorter it seems) since we began to want to know our own powers and put our knowledge into practice.
I have then all the more reason to ask you first to forgive any mistake I may have made, and then to remedy it with your expert knowledge; for you have always made a special study of civil and constitutional law, ancient and modern, with reference to exceptional as well as current problems. Personally I think that the kind of question I am putting to you would be unfamiliar even to people whose constant dealing with large numbers of cases makes them conversant with most possibilities; it might be entirely outside their experience. So there will be the more excuse for me, if perhaps I was at fault, and the more credit to you if you can instruct me on a point on which you may not have been informed yourself.
The case at issue concerned the freedmen of the consul Afranius Dexter, who had been found dead; it was not known whether he had killed himself or his servants were responsible, and, if the latter, whether they acted criminally or in obedience to their master. After the proceedings one opinion (whose? – mine, but that is irrelevant) was that they should be acquitted, another that they should be banished to an island, and a third that they should be put to death. Such diversity of sentences meant that they had to be considered singly; for what have death and banishment in common? Obviously no more than banishment and acquittal, though a vote for acquittal is nearer banishment than a vote for death, for the first two leave a man his life while death removes it. Meanwhile those who voted for the death penalty and banishment respectively were sitting together and shelving their differences by a temporary show of unity.
I asked for the three sentences to be reckoned as three, and that two should not join forces under a momentary truce. Therefore I insisted that the supporters of the death penalty should move away from the proposers of banishment, and that the two parties should not combine to oppose those asking for acquittal when they would afterwards disagree amongst themselves; for it mattered little that they took the same negative view when their positive proposals were so different. Another point I found extraordinary was that the member who proposed banishment for the freedmen and death for the slaves should have been obliged to divide his vote, while one who was for executing the freedmen could be counted as voting with the proposer of banishment. For if one person’s vote had to be divided because it covered two distinct sentences, I could not see how the votes of two people making such different proposals could be taken together.
Now, although the case is over let me treat it as still open; let me explain to you, as I did to the Senate, why I held this view; and let me assemble now in my own time the points I had then to make piecemeal amidst considerable interruption. Let us suppose that three judges only have been appointed for this case, one of whom has said that the freedmen should die, the second that they should be banished, and the third that they should be acquitted. Is the combined weight of the first two sentences to defeat the third, or is each one to be weighed against the others and the first and second to be combined no more than the second and third? Similarly, in the Senate, all different opinions expressed ought to be counted as conflicting. But if one and the same person proposed both death and banishment could the prisoners suffer both punishments by one person’s sentence alone? Could it be considered as one sentence at all when it combined such different proposals? Then, when one person proposes death and another banishment, how can these be held to be a single sentence because expressed by two people when they were not a single sentence if expressed by one person?
Well; the law clearly states that sentences of death and banishment should be considered separately, in its formula for taking a division: ‘All who agree go to this side, all who support any other proposal to the side you support.’ Take the words one by one and consider them. ‘Who agree’ means ‘Who think the prisoners should be banished’; ‘to this side’ is the side of the House where the proposer of banishment is sitting. It is clear from this that those who want death for the prisoners cannot stay on that side. ‘Who support any other proposal’ - you will observe that the law is not content with saying ‘other’ but has added the word ‘any’. Can it be doubted that those who would put the prisoners to death ‘support any other proposal’ in comparison with those who would banish them? ‘Go to the side you support’: surely the wording of the law seems to summon and positively compel those who disagree to take different sides? The consul also indicates not only by the established formula, but by a movement of the hand where everyone is to remain or to what side to cross.
But it can be argued that if the sentences of death and banishment are taken separately it will result in the acquittal having a majority. That is no concern of the voters, and it certainly ill becomes them to use every weapon and device to defeat a more lenient sentence. Or, again, it can be said that those voting for death and banishment should first be matched against those supporting acquittal, and then against each other. In some of the public games one gladiator draws a lot which entitles him to stand aside and wait to fight the victor; so I suppose there are to be first and second rounds in the Senate, too, and the third sentence is to wait and meet the victor of the other two. What about the rule that if the first sentence is approved all the others are defeated? On what principle can these sentences not start on the same footing, seeing that they may all subsequently cease to count? I will put this again more clearly. As soon as the proposal of banishment is made, unless those in favour of execution immediately cross over to the other side, it will be useless their afterwards opposing what they agreed with a short time before.
But I should not be the one to give instruction, when I really wanted to learn whether the two sentences should have been subsequently divided, or all three voted on separately. I carried my point, but none the less I want to know whether I should have made it. How did I manage this? The proposer of the death sentence was convinced by the justice of my request (whether or not it was legal), dropped his own proposal, and supported that of banishment. He was afraid, no doubt, that if the sentences were taken separately (which seemed likely if he did not act) the acquittal would have a majority, for there were many more people in favour of this than of either of the other two proposals. Then, when those who had been influenced by him found themselves abandoned by his crossing the floor and the proposal thrown over by its author, they dropped it too, and deserted after their leader. So the three sentences became two, and the second carried the day by elimination of the third which could not defeat both the others, and therefore chose to submit to one.
15. To Terentius Junior
I must be overwhelming you by sending so many books at once; but you asked for them, and, as you write that your grape harvest is so poor, I can be sure that if you can’t be picking grapes you will have time, as they say, to pick up a book. I have the same news from my own farms, so I shall have time, too, to write something for your ‘picking’ so long as I can still afford to buy paper. Otherwise I shall have to erase all I write, good or bad, and use the paper again.
16. To Plinius Paternus
I have been much distressed by illness amongst my servants, the deaths, too, of some of the younger men. Two facts console me somewhat, though inadequately in trouble like this: I am always ready to grant my slaves their freedom, so I don’t feel their death is so untimely when they die free, men, and I allow even those who remain slaves to make a sort of will which I treat as legally binding. They set out their instructions and requests as they think fit, and I carry them out as if acting under orders. They can distribute their possessions and make any gifts and bequests they like, within the Emits of the household: for the house provides a slave with a country and a sort of citizenship.
But though I can take comfort from these thoughts, I still find my powers of resistance weakened by the very feelings of humanity which led me to grant this privilege. Not that I would wish to be harder of heart; and I am well aware that some people look upon misfortunes of this kind as no more than a monetary loss, and think themselves fine men and philosophers for doing so. Whether they are in fact fine and philosophic I can’t say, but they are certainly not men. A true man is affected by grief and has feelings, though he may fight them; he allows himself to be consoled, but is not above the need of consolation. I may perhaps have said more on this subject than I ought, but not so much as I would like. Even grief has its pleasure, especially if you can weep in the arms of a friend who is ready with approval or sympathy for your tears.
17. To Caecilius Macrinus
Can the weather be as bad and stormy where you are? Here we have nothing but gales and repeated floods. The Tiber has overflowed its bed and deeply flooded its lower banks, so that although it is being drained by the canal cut by the Emperor, with his usual foresight, it is filling the valleys and inundating the fields, and wherever there is level ground there is nothing to be seen but water. Then the streams which it normally receives and carries down to the sea are forced back as it spreads to meet them, and so it floods with their water the fields it does not reach itself. The Anio, most delightful of rivers – so much so that the houses on its banks seem to beg it not to leave them – has torn up and carried away most of the woods which shade its course. Where the banks rise high they have been undermined, so that its channel is blocked in several places with the resultant landslides; and in its efforts to regain its lost course it has wrecked buildings and forced out its way over the debris.
People who were hit by the storm on higher ground have seen the valuable furniture and fittings of wealthy homes, or else all the farm stock, yoked oxen, ploughs and ploughmen, or cattle left free to graze, and amongst them trunks of trees or beams and roofs of houses, all floating by in widespread confusion. Nor have the places where the river did not rise escaped disaster, for instead of floods they have had incessant rain, gales, and cloudbursts which have destroyed the walls enclosing valuable properties, rocked public buildings and brought them crashing to the ground. Many people have been maimed, crushed, and buried in such accidents, so that loss of life is added to material damage.
My fears that you have been through something like this are proportionate to the danger – if I am wrong, please relieve my anxiety as soon as possible; and let me know in any case. Whether disaster is actual or expected the effect is much the same, except that suffering has its limits but apprehension has none; suffering is confined to the known event, but apprehension extends to every possibility.
18. To Fadius Rufinus
There is certainly no truth in the popular belief that a man’s will is a mirror of his character, for Domitius Tullus has proved himself to be much better in death than life. Although he had encouraged legacy hunters, he left as heiress the daughter he shared with his brother (he had adopted his brother’s child). He also left a great many welcome legacies to his grandsons and to his great-granddaughter; in fact the whole will is ample proof of his affection for his family, and so all the more unexpected.
Consequently the city is full of conflicting opinions; some accuse him of hypocrisy, ingratitude and fickleness, and in attacking him betray themselves by their own disgraceful admissions, for they complain about a man who was a father, grandfather, and great-grandfather as if he were childless. Others applaud him for the very reason that he has disappointed the shameless expectations of men whose frustration in this way accords with the spirit of the times. They also say that Tullus was not free to leave any other will, for he did not bequeath his wealth to his daughter so much as restore what he had acquired through her. For when Curtilius Mancia took a violent dislike to his son-in-law Domitius Lucanus (brother of Tullus), he made his granddaughter, Lucanus’s daughter, his heiress on condition that she was freed from her father’s control. The father set her free, but the uncle adopted her; thus the purpose of the will was defeated, for, as the brothers held their property jointly, the daughter, once freed, was brought back under her father’s control by the device of adoption, and with her came a large fortune. Indeed, these brothers seemed destined to be made rich by people who intended otherwise. Even Domitius Afer, who adopted them into his family, left a will which had been drawn up eighteen years previously and was subsequently so far removed from his intentions that he had taken steps to procure the confiscation of their father’s property. His severity in removing from the citizen roll the man whose children he had shared is no less remarkable than their good fortune in finding a second father in the man who ruined their first. However, this inheritance from Afer was also destined to go to Lucanus’s daughter along with the rest of the brothers’ joint acquisitions; for Lucanus had made Tullus his sole heir in preference to his own daughter, with the idea of bringing them together.
So this will is all the more creditable for being dictated by family affection, honesty, and feelings of shame; and in it Tullus acknowledges his obligations to all his relatives in return for their services to him, as he does to the excellent wife who had borne with him so long. She has inherited his beautiful country houses and a large sum of money, and deserved all the more from her husband for having been so severely criticized for marrying him. It was thought most unsuitable that a woman of her high birth and blameless character, who was no longer young, had borne children in the past and long been widowed, should marry a wealthy old man and a hopeless invalid, whom even a wife who had known him when young and healthy might have found an object of disgust. Crippled and deformed in every limb, he could only enjoy his vast wealth by contemplating it and could not even turn in bed without assistance. He also had to have his teeth cleaned and brushed for him – a squalid and pitiful detail – and when complaining about the humiliations of his infirmity was often heard to say that every day he licked the fingers of his slaves. Yet he went on living, and kept his will to live, helped chiefly by his wife, whose devoted care turned the former criticism of her marriage into a tribute of admiration.
That is all the city gossip, as Tullus is all we talk about. We are looking forward to the sale of his effects, for he had so many possessions that on the very day he bought a large garden he was able to beautify it with quantities of antique statues from the splendid works of art he had stored away and forgotten. If you have any local news worth sending in return, don’t grudge me it. Not only is it always a pleasure to hear something new, but also through examples we study the art of living.
19. To Maximus
Literature is both my joy and my comfort: it can add to every happiness and there is no sorrow it cannot console. So worried as I am by my wife’s ill-health and the sickness in my household and death of some of my servants, I have taken refuge in my work, the only distraction I have in my misery. It may make me more conscious of my troubles, but helps me to bear them with patience.
It is, however, my habit to test everything I propose to submit to the general public by the judgement of my friends, especially your own. Will you then give your attention to the book you will receive with this letter, now as never before? I fear my distress will have impaired my own concentration, for I could control my feelings enough to write, but not to write freely and happily, and if one’s work is to give pleasure it must have its inspiration in happiness.
20. To Clusinius (?) Gallus
We are always ready to make a journey and cross the sea in search of things we fail to notice in front of our eyes, whether it is that we are naturally indifferent to anything close at hand while pursuing distant objects, or that every desire fades when it can easily be granted, or that we postpone a visit with the idea that we shall often be seeing what is there to be seen whenever we feel inclined. Whatever the reason, there are a great many things in Rome and near by which we have never seen nor even heard of, though if they were to be found in Greece, Egypt or Asia, or any other country which advertises its wealth of marvels, we should have heard and read about them and seen them for ourselves.
I am a case in point. I have just heard of something (and seen it, too) which I had neither seen nor heard of before. My wife’s grandfather had asked me to look at his property in Ameria.1 While going round I was shown a lake at the foot of the hills called Lake Vadimon,2 and at the same time told some extraordinary facts about it. I went down to look at it, and found it was perfectly round and regular in shape, like a wheel lying on its side, without a single irregular bend or curve, and so evenly proportioned that it might have been artificially shaped and hollowed out. It is subdued in colour, pale blue with a tinge of green, has a smell of sulphur and a mineral taste, and the property of healing fractures. It is of no great size, but large enough for the wind to raise waves on its surface. There are no boats on it, as the waters are sacred, but floating islands, green with reeds and sedge and the other plants which grow more profusely on the marshy ground at the edge of the lake. Each island has its peculiar shape and size, and all have their edges worn away by friction, as they are constantly knocking against each other and the shore. They all have the same height and buoyancy, each shallow base dipping into the water like the keel of a boat; and this has the same appearance from all sides, both the part above and the part under water. Sometimes the islands join together to look like a continuous piece of land, sometimes they are driven apart by conflicting winds, while in calm weather they are left to float about separately. The small islands often attach themselves to the larger, like small boats to a merchant ship, and both large and small sometimes appear to be racing each other; or they are all driven to one side of the lake to create a headland where they cling to the shore; they remove or restore stretches of the lake on one side or the other, so that its size is unaltered only when they all keep to the centre. Cattle are often known to walk on to the islands while grazing, taking them for the edge of the lake, and only realize that they are on moving ground when carried off from the shore as if forcibly put on board ship, and are terrified to find themselves surrounded by water; then, when they land where the wind has carried them, they are no more conscious of having ended their voyage than they were of embarking on it. Another feature of the lake is the river leading from it, which is visible for a short distance before it enters a cave and continues its course at a great depth; anything thrown in before it disappears is carried along and reappears with it.
I have given you these details because I imagine they are as new and interesting to you as they were to me; natural phenomena are always a great source of interest to us both.
21. To Maturus Arrianus
In literature, as in life, I think it a becoming sign of humanity to mingle grave and gay, lest the one becomes too austere and the other indelicate; and this is the principle which leads me to intersperse my more serious works with trifles for amusement. Some of these I had ready to bring out, so I chose the most suitable time and place, and to accustom them from now onwards to being received by a leisured audience in the dining-room, I gathered my friends together in the month of July (which is usually a quiet time in the law courts) and settled them in chairs in front of the couches. It so happened that on the morning of that very day I was unexpectedly summoned to court to give legal assistance, and this gave me a subject for my introductory remarks. For I began by hoping that no one would accuse me of irresponsibility when, on the day I was to give a reading (though this was limited to a small circle of friends), I had not kept myself free from professional duties – that is, the claims of other friends. I went on to say that I kept to the same order in my writing; I put duty before pleasure and serious work before amusement, and wrote primarily for my friends and after them for myself. The work itself consisted of short pieces in different metres, for that is how those of us with no great confidence in our abilities avoid the risk of boring our public. The reading lasted for two days, at the request of my audience, in spite of the fact that, whereas other people omit passages and expect credit for doing so, I make it clear that I am leaving nothing out. I read every word so as to correct every word: a thing which is impossible for readers of selected passages. It may be said that theirs is the more restrained and possibly more considerate practice, but mine is more guileless and affectionate; for the confidence in your friends’ affection which makes you have no fear of boring them is proof of your own feeling. Besides, what is the good of having friends if they meet only for their own amusement? It is the dilettante and indifferent listener who would rather listen to a good book by his friend instead of helping to make it so. I don’t doubt that your affection for me will make you eager to read this work of mine as soon as possible, before it has lost its freshness; and so you shall, but not until after revision, as this was the purpose of my reading it aloud. Parts of it you have seen already, but after these have been corrected (or changed for the worse, as does sometimes happen after a long delay) you will find new life and style in them. For when the greater part of a book is recast the remainder appears to share in the change.
22. To Rosianus Geminus
You must know people who are slaves to every sort of passion while they display a sort of jealous resentment against the faults of others, and show least mercy to those they most resemble; though there are other people who need no man’s forgiveness but are best known for their tolerance. My own idea of the truly good and faultless man is one who forgives the faults of others as if he was daily committing them himself, and who keeps himself free of faults as if he could never forgive them. This then should be our rule at home and abroad, in every walk of life: to show no mercy to ourselves and be ready with it for others, even for those who can excuse no failings but their own. Let us always remember what was so often said by Thrasea, whose gift of sympathy made him the great man he was: ‘Anyone who hates faults hates mankind.’
You may wonder what has provoked me to write like this. Someone recently – but I can tell you better when we meet, or better still, not at all, for I am afraid that if I offer any hostile criticism or even tell you what I dislike, it will conflict with this principle to which I attach such importance. The man and his character shall not be told; to expose him would point no moral, but not to do so is a true sign of generosity.
23. To Aefulanus Marcellinus
Work, cares and distractions – all are interrupted, cut short, and driven out of my mind, for the death of Junius Avitus has been a terrible blow. He had assumed the broad stripe of the senator in my house and had my support when standing for office, and such moreover was his affectionate regard for me that he took me for his moral guide and mentor. This is rare in the young people of today, few of whom will yield to age or authority as being their superior. They are born with knowledge and understanding of everything; they show neither respect nor desire to imitate, and set their own standards.
Avitus was not like this. His wisdom consisted in his belief that others were wiser than himself, his learning in his readiness to be taught. He always sought advice for his studies or his duties in life, and always went away feeling he was made better; and indeed he was better, either from the advice given him or from the very fact that he had asked for it. What deference he showed to the high standards of Servianus! They first met when Servianus was legate of Germany, and Avitus, when serving as military tribune, so won his heart that on his transfer to Pannonia he took the young man with him, not as a serving soldier so much as a companion and member of his personal staff. Think of the industry and unassuming manner which won him the liking and affection of the many consuls who found him so useful as a quaestor, and the energy and concentration he applied to canvassing for the office of aedile, from which he has been thus prematurely taken away. This is what I find hardest to bear; his useless efforts, his fruitless prayers, the position he deserved but never held, are always in my mind’s eye; the senator’s stripe he assumed in my home, the first time, and now this last time I supported his election, our talks and discussions, all come back to me.
I mourn his youth and the plight of his family, for he leaves an elderly mother, a wife he married only a year ago, and a daughter not long born. So many hopes and joys are thus reversed in a single day. He had just been elected aedile, and for a short time he was husband and father: now he has left the post he never held, his mother is childless and his wife a widow, and his daughter is left an orphan, never to know a father’s love. I weep the more to think that I was away and knew nothing of the fate hanging over him – the news of his illness and death reached me at the same moment, before fear could accustom me to this cruel sorrow. I am in such anguish as I write that this must be all; I can think and speak of nothing else just now.
24. To Valerius (?) Maximus
I know you need no telling, but my love for you prompts me to remind you to keep in mind and put into practice what you know already, or else it would be better for you to remain ignorant. Remember that you have been sent to the province of Achaea, to the pure and genuine Greece, where civilization and literature, and agriculture, too, are believed to have originated; and you have been sent to set in order the constitution of free cities, and are going to free men who are both men and free in the fullest sense, for they have maintained their natural rights by their courage, merits, and friendly relationships, and finally by treaty and sanction of religion. Respect the gods their founders and the names they bear, respect their ancient glory and their very age, which in man commands our veneration, in cities our reverence. Pay regard to their antiquity, their heroic deeds, and the legends of their past. Do not detract from anyone’s dignity, independence, or even pride, but always bear in mind that this is the land which provided us with justice and gave us laws, not after conquering us but at our request; that it is Athens you go to and Sparta you rule, and to rob them of the name and shadow of freedom, which is all that now remains to them, would be an act of cruelty, ignorance and barbarism. (Illness is the same in a slave as in a free man, but you will have observed how a doctor will treat the free man with more kindness and consideration.) Remember what each city was once, but without looking down on it for being so no longer; do not allow yourself to be hard or domineering, and have no fear that you will be despised for this. No one who bears the insignia of supreme authority is despised unless his own meanness and ignobility show that he must be the first to despise himself. It is a poor thing if authority can only test its powers by insults to others, and if homage is to be won by terror; affection is far more effective than fear in gaining you your ends. Fear disappears at your departure, affection remains, and, whereas fear engenders hatred, affection develops into genuine regard.
Never, never forget (I must repeat this) the official title you bear, and keep clearly in mind what it means and how much it means to establish order in the constitution of free cities, for nothing can serve a city like ordered rule and nothing is so precious as freedom; nor can anything equal the disgrace should order be overthrown and freedom give place to servitude. You are moreover your own rival; you bring with you the excellent reputation you won during your quaestorship in Bithynia, you bring the Emperor’s recognition and your experience as tribune, praetor, and holder of your present office, given you as a reward for your services. You must then make every effort not to let it appear that you were a better, kinder, and more experienced administrator in a remote province than in one nearer Rome and when dealing with servile rather than free men, when you were elected by lot instead of being the Emperor’s choice, and at a time when you were raw and unknown before being tested and proved by experience. And, besides, as you have often heard and read, it is far more shameful to lose a reputation than not to win one.
Please believe, as I said at the start, that this letter was intended not to tell, but to remind you of your duties – though I know I am really telling you as well, as I am not afraid of letting my affection carry me too far; there is no danger of excess where there ought to be no limits.