Letters of Pliny the Younger | Page 4

attend authors readings and to listen wizen they were
present; a dinner party; legacy-hunting in ancient Rome; the acquisition
of a piece of statuary; his love for his young wife; ghost stories;
floating islands, a tame dolphin, and other marvels. But by far the best
known are those describing the great eruption of Vesuvius in which his
uncle perished, a martyr to scientific curiosity, and the letter to Trajan
on his attempts to suppress Christianity in Bithynia, with Trajan s reply
approving his policy. Taken altogether, these letters give an
absorbingly vivid picture of the days of the early empire, and of the
interests of a cultivated Roman gentleman of wealth. Occasionally, as
in the last letters referred to, they deal with important historical events;
but their chief value is in bringing before us, in somewhat the same
manner as "The Spectator" pictures the England of the age of Anne, the
life of a time which is not so unlike our own as its distance in years
might indicate. And in this time by no means the least interesting figure
is that of the letter-writer himself, with his vanity and self-importance,
his sensibility and generous affection? hvs pedantry and his loyalty.
LETTERS GAIUS PLINIUS CAECILIUS SECUNDUS
I
To SEPTITTUS
YOU have frequently pressed me to make a select collection of my
Letters (if there really be any deserving of a special preference) and
give them to the public. I have selected them accordingly; not, indeed,
in their proper order of time, for I was not compiling a history; but just
as each came to hand. And now I have only to wish that you may have
no reason to repent of your advice, nor I of my compliance: in that case,

I may probably enquire after the rest, which at present he neglected,
and preserve those I shall hereafter write. Farewell.
II
To ARRIANUS
I FORESEE your journey in my direction is likely to be delayed, and
therefore send you the speech which I promised in my former;
requesting you, as usual, to revise and correct it. I desire this the more
earnestly as I never, I think, wrote with the same empressenient in any
of my former speeches; for I have endeavoured to imitate your old
favourite Demosthenes and Calvus, who is lately become mine, at least
in the rhetorical forms of the speech; for to catch their sublime spirit, is
given, alone, to the "inspired few." My subject, indeed, seemed
naturally to lend itself to this (may I venture to call it?) emulation;
consisting, as it did, almost entirely in a vehement style of address,
even to a degree sufficient to have awakened me (if only I am capable
of being awakened) out of that indolence in which I have long reposed.
I have not however altogether neglected the flowers of rhetoric of my
favourite Marc-Tully, wherever I could with propriety step out of my
direct road, to enjoy a more flowery path: for it was energy, not
austerity, at which I aimed. I would not have you imagine by this that I
am bespeaking your indulgence: on the contrary, to make your
correcting pen more vigorous, I will confess that neither my friends nor
myself are averse from the publication of this piece, if only you should
join in the approval of what is perhaps my folly. The truth is, as I must
publish something, I, wish it might be this performance rather than any
other, because it is already finished: (you hear the wish of laziness.) At
all events, however, something I must publish, and for many reasons;
chiefly because of the tracts which I have already sent in to the world,
though they have long since lost all their recommendation from novelty,
are still, I am told, in request; if, after all, the booksellers are not
tickling my ears. And let them; since, by that innocent deceit, I am
encouraged to pursue my studies. Farewell.
III
To VOCONIUS ROMANUS
DID YOU ever meet with a more abject and mean-spirited creature
than Marcus Regulus since the death of Domitian, during whose reign
his conduct was no less infamous, though more concealed, than under

Nero's? He began to be afraid I was angry with him, and his
apprehensions were perfectly correct; I was angry. He had not only
done his best to increase the peril of the position in which Rusticus
Arulenus1 stood, but had exulted in his death; insomuch that he
actually recited and published a libel upon his memory, in which he
styles him "The Stoics' Ape": adding, "stigmated2 with the Vitellian
scar."3 You recognize Regulus' eloquent strain! He fell with such fury
upon the character of Herennius Senecio that Metius Carus said to him,
one day, "What business have you with my dead? Did I ever