Part 19

As you are not of a disposition to expect from your friends the ordinary ceremonial observances of society when they cannot observe them without inconvenience to themselves, so I love you too steadfastly to be apprehensive of your taking otherwise than I wish you should my not waiting upon you on the first day of your entrance upon the consular office, especially as I am detained here by the necessity of letting my farms upon long leases. I am obliged to enter upon an entirely new plan with my tenants: for under the former leases, though I made them very considerable abatements, they have run greatly in arrear. For this reason several of them have not only taken no sort of care to lessen a debt which they found themselves incapable of wholly discharging, but have even seized and consumed all the produce of the land, in the belief that it would now be of no advantage to themselves to spare it. I must therefore obviate this increasing evil, and endeavour to find out some remedy against it. The only one I can think of is, not to reserve my rent in money, but in kind, and so place some of my servants to overlook the tillage, and guard the stock; as indeed there is no sort of revenue more agreeable to reason than what arises from the bounty of the soil, the seasons, and the climate. It is true, this method will require great honesty, sharp eyes, and many hands. However, I must risk the experiment, and, as in an inveterate complaint, try every change of remedy. You see, it is not any pleasurable indulgence that prevents my attending you on the first day of your consulship. I shall celebrate it nevertheless, as much as if I were present, and pay my vows for you here, with all the warmest tokens of joy and congratulation. Farewell.

CX -- To FUSCUS

You are much pleased, I find, with the account I gave you in my former letter of how I spend the summer season at Tuscum, and desire to know what alteration I make in my method when I am at Laurentum in the winter. None at all, except abridging myself of my sleep at noon, and borrowing a good piece of the night before daybreak and after sunset for study: and if business is very urgent (which in winter very frequently happens), instead of having interludes or music after supper, I reconsider whatever I have previously dictated, and improve my memory at the same time by this frequent mental revision. Thus I have given you a general sketch of my mode of life in summer and winter; to which you may add the intermediate seasons of spring and autumn, in which, while losing nothing out of the day, I gain but little from the night. Farewell.

]

FOOTNOTES TO THE LETTERS OF PLINY] 1 (return) [ A pupil and intimate friend of Paetus Thrasea, the distinguished Stoic philosopher. Arulenus was put to death by Domitian for writing a panegyric upon Thrasea.]

2 (return) [ The impropriety of this expression, in the original, seems to be in the word stigmosum, which Regulus, probably either coined through affectation or used through ignorance. It is a word, at least, which does not occur in any author of authority: the translator has endeavoured, therefore, to preserve the same sort of impropriety, by using an expression of like unwarranted stamp in his own tongue. M.]

3 (return) [ An allusion to a wound he had received in the war between Vitellius and Vespasian.]

4 (return) [ A brother of Piso Galba's adopted son. He was put to death by Nero.]

5 (return) [ Sulpicius Camerinus, put to death by the same emperor, upon some frivolous charge.]

6 (return) [ A select body of men who formed a court of judicature, called the centurnviral court. Their jurisdiction extended chiefly, if not entirely, to questions of wills and intestate estates. Their number, it would seem, amounted to 100. M.]

7 (return) [ Junius Mauricus, the brother of Rusticus Arulenus. Both brothers were sentenced on the same day, Arulenue to execution and Mauricui to banishment.]

8 (return) [ There seems to have been a cast of uncommon blackness in the character of this Regulus; otherwise the benevolent Pliny would scarcely have singled him out, as he has in this and some following letters, for the subject of his warmest contempt and indignation. Yet, infamous as he was, he had his flatterers and admirers; and a contemporary poet frequently represents him as one of the most finished characters of the age, both in eloquence and virtue. M.]

9 (return) [ The Decurii were a sort of senators in the municipal or corporate cities of Italy. M.]

10 (return) [ "Euphrates was a native of Tyre, or, according to others, of Byzantium. He belonged to the Stoic school of philosophy. In his old age he became tired of life, and asked and obtained from Hadrian permission to put an end to himself by poison." Smith's Dict. of Greek and Roman Biog.]

11 (return) [ A pleader and historian of some distinction, mentioned by Tacitus, Ann. XIV. 19, and by Quintilian, X, I, 102.]

12 (return) [ Padua.]

13 (return) [ Domitian]

14 (return) [ Iliad, XII. 243. Pope.]

15 (return) [ Equal to about $4,000 of our money. After the reign of Augustus the value of the sesterces.]

16 (return) [ "The equestrian dignity, or that order of the Roman people which we commonly call knights, had nothing in it analogous to any order of modern knighthood, but depended entirely upon a valuation of their estates; and every citizen, whose entire fortune amounted to 400,000 sesterces, that is, to about $16,000 of our money, was enrolled, of course, in the list of knights, who were considered as a middle order between the senators and common people, yet, without any other distinction than the privilege of wearing a gold ring, which was the peculiar badge of their order." Life of Cicero, Vol. I. III. in note. M.]

17 (return) [ An elegant Attic orator, remarkable for the grace and lucidity of his style, also for his vivid and accurate delineations of character.]

18 (return) [ A graceful and powerful orator, and friend of Densosthenes.]

19 (return) [ A Roman orator of the Augustan age. He was a poet and historian as well, but gained most distinction as an orator.]

20 (return) [ A man of considerable taste, talent, and eloquence, but profligate and extravagant. He was on terms of some intimacy with Cicero.]

21 (return) [ The praetor was assisted by ten assessors, five of whom were senators, and the rest knights. With these he was obliged to consult before he pronounced sentence. M.]

22 (return) [ A contemporary and rival of Aristophanes.]

23 (return) [ Aristophanes, Ach. 531]

24 (return) [ Thersites. Iliad, II. V. 212.]

25 (return) [ Ulysses. Iliad, III. V. 222.]

26 (return) [ Menelaua. Iliad, III. V. 214.]

27 (return) [ Great-grandfather of the Emperor M. Aurelius.]

28 (return) [ An eminent lawyer of Trajan's reign.]

29 (return) [ The philosophers used to hold their disputations in the gymnasia and porticoes, being places of the most public resort for walking, &c. M.]

30 (return) [ "Verginius Rufus was governor of Upper Germany at the time of the revolt of Julius Vindex in Gaul. A.D. 68. The soldiers of Verginius wished to raise him to the empire, but he refused the honour, and marched against Vindex, who perished before Vesontio. After the death of Nero, Verginius supported the claims of Galba, and accompanied him to Rome. Upon Otho's death, the soldiers again attempted to proclaim Verginius emperor, and in consequence of his refusal of the honour, he narrowly escaped with his life." (See Smith's Dict. of Greek and Rom. Biog., &c.)]

31 (return) [ Nerva.]

32 (return) [ The historian,]

33 (return) [ Namely, of augurs. "This college, as regulated by Sylla, consisted of fifteen, who were all persons of the first distinction in Rome; it was a priesthood for life, of a character indelible, which no crime or forfeiture could efface; it was necessary that every candidate should be nominated to the people by two augurs, who gave a solemn testimony upon, oath of his dignity and fitness for that office." Middleton's Life of Cicero, I. 547. M.]

34 (return) [ The ancient Greeks and Romans did not sit up at the table as we do, but reclined round it on couches, three and sometimes even four occupying one conch, at least this latter was the custom among the Romans. Each guest lay flat upon his chest while eating, reaching out his hand from time to time to the table, for what he might require. As soon as he had made a sufficient meal, he turned over upon his left side, leaning on the elbow.]

35 (return) [ A people of Germany.]

36 (return) [ "Any Roman priest devoted to the service of one particular god was designated Flamen, receiving a distinguishing epithet from the deity to whom he ministered. The office was understood to last for life; but a flamen might be compelled to resign for a breach of duty, or even on account of the occurrence of an ill-omened accident while discharging his functions." Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities.]

37 (return) [ Trajan.]

38 (return) [ By a law passed A. D. 76, it was enacted that every citizen of Rome who had three children should be excused from all troublesome offices where he lived. This privilege the emperors sometimes extended to those who were not legally entitled to it.]

39 (return) [ About 54 cents.]

40 (return) [ Avenue]

41 (return) [ "Windows made of a transparent stone called lapis specularis (mica), which was first found in Hispania Citerior, and afterwards in Cyprus, Cappadocia, Sicily, and Africa; but the best caine from Spain and Cappadocia. It was easily split into the thinnest sheets. Windows, made of this stone were called specularia." Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities.]

42 (return) [ A feast held in honour of the god Saturn, which began on the 19th of December, and continued as some say, for seven days. It was a time of general rejoicing, particularly among the slaves, who had at this season the privilege of taking great liberties with their masters. M.]

43 (return) [ Cicero and Quintilian have laid down rules how far, and in what instances, this liberty was allowable, and both agree it ought to be used with great sagacity and judgment. The latter of these excellent critics mentions a witticism of Flavius Virginius, who asked one of these orators, "Quot nillia assuum deciamassett." How many miles he had declaimed. M.]

44 (return) [ This was an act of great ceremony; and if Aurelia's dress was of the kind which some of the Roman ladies used, the legacy must have been considerable which Regulus had the impudence to ask. M.]

45 (return) [ $3,350,000.]

46 (return) [ A poet to whom Quintilian assigns the highest rank, as a Writer of tragedies, among his contemporaries (book X. C. I. 98). Tacitus also speaks of him in terms of high appreciation (Annals, v. 8).]

47 (return) [ Stepson of Augustus and brother to Tiberius. An amiable and popular prince. He died at the close of his third campaign, from a fracture received by falling from his horse.]

48 (return) [ A historian under Augustus and Tiberius. He wrote part of a history of Rome, which was continued by the elder Pliny; also an account of the German war, to which Quintilian makes allusion (Inst. X. 103), pronouncing him, as a historian, "estimable in all respects, yet in some things failing to do himself justice."]

49 (return) [ The distribution of time among the Romans was very different from ours. They divided the night into four equal parts, which they called watches, each three hours in length; and part of these they devoted either to the pleasures of the table or to study. The natural day they divided into twelve hours, the first beginning with sunrise, and the last ending with sunset; by which means their hours were of unequal length, varying according to the different seasons of the year. The time for business began with sunrise, and continued to the fifth hour, being that of dinner, which with them was only a slight repast. From thence to the seventh hour was a time of repose; a custom which still prevails in Italy. The eighth hour was employed in bodily exercises; after which they constantly bathed, and from thence went to supper. M.]

50 (return) [ $16,000.]

51 (return) [ Born about A. D. 25. He acquired some distinction as an advocate. The only poem of his which has come down to us is a heavy prosaic performance in seventeen books, entitled "Tunica," and containing an account of the events of the Second Punic War, from the capture of Saguntum to the triumph of Scipio Africanus. See Smith's Dict. of Gr. and Roin. Biog.]

52 (return) [ Trajan.]

53 (return) [ Spurinna's wife.]

54 (return) [ Domitian banished the philosophers not only from Rome, but Italy, as Suetonius (Dom. C. X.) and Aulus Gellius (Noct. Att. b. XV. CXI. 3, 4, 5) Inform us among these was the celebrated Epictetus. M.]

55 (return) [ The following is the story, as related by several of the ancient historians. Paetus, having joined Scribonianus, who was in arms, in Illyria, against Claudius, was taken after the death of Scribonianus, and condemned to death. Arria having, in vain, solicited his life, persuaded him to destroy himself, rather than suffer the ignominy of falling by the executioner's hands; and, in order to encourage him to an act, to which, it seems, he was not particularly inclined, she set him the example in the manner Pliny relates. M.]

56 (return) [ Trajan.]

57 (return) [ The Roman, used to employ their criminals in the lower ones of husbandry, such as ploughing, &c. Pun. H. N. 1. 18, 3. M.]

58 (return) [ About $500,000.]

59 (return) [ About $800,000.]

60 (return) [ One of the famous seven hills upon which Rome was situated.]

61 (return) [ Mart. LX. 19.]

62 (return) [ Calpurnia, Pliny's wife.]

63 (return) [ Now Citta di Castello.]

64 (return) [ The Romans had an absolute power over their children, of which no age or station of the latter deprived them.]

65 (return) [ Their business was to interpret dreams, oracles, prodigies, &c., and to foretell whether any action should be fortunate or prejudicial, to particular persons, or to the whole commonwealth. Upon this account, they very often occasioned the displacing of magistrates, the deferring of public assemblies, &c. Kennet's Ron,. Antig. M.]

66 (return) [ Trajan.]

67 (return) [ A slave was incapable of property; and, therefore, whatever he acquired became the right of his master. M.]

68 (return) [ "Their office was to attend upon the rites of Vests, the chief part of which was the preservation of the holy fire. If this fire happened to go out, it was considered impiety to light it at any common flame, but they made use of the pure and unpolluted rays of the sun for that purpose. There were various other duties besides connected with their office. The chief rules prescribed them were, to vow the strictest chastity, for the space of thirty years. After this term was completed, they had liberty to leave the order. If they broke their vow of virginity, they were buried alive in a place allotted to that peculiar use." Kennet's Antiq. Their reputation for sanctity was so high that Livy mentions the fact of two of those virgins having violated their vows, as a prodigy that, threatened destruction to the Roman state. Lib. XXII. C. 57. And Suetonius inform, us that Augiastus had so high an opinion of this religious order, that he consigned the care of his will to the Vestal Virgins. Suet, in vit. Aug. C. XCI. M.]

69 (return) [ It was usual with Domitian to triumph, not only without a victory, but even after a defeat, M.]

70 (return) [ Euripides' Hecuba,]

71 (return) [ The punishment inflicted upon the violators of Vestal chastity was to be scourged to death. M.]

72 (return) [ Calpurnia, Pliny's wife.]

73 (return) [ Gratilla was the wife of Rusticus: Rusticus was put to death by Domitian, and Gratilla banished. It was sufficient crime in the reign of that execrable prince to be even a friend of those who were obnoxious to him. M.]

74 (return) [ In the original, scrinium, box for holding MSS.]

75 (return) [ The hippodromus, in its proper signification, was a place, among the Grecians, set apart for horse-racing and other exercises of that kind. But it seems here to be nothing more than a particular walk, to which Pliny perhaps gave that name, from its bearing some resemblance in its form to the public places so called. M.]

76 (return) [ Now called Frascati, Tivoli, and Palestrina, all of them situated in the Campagna di Roma, and at no great distance from Rome. M.]

77 (return) [ "This is said in allusion to the idea of Nemesis supposed to threaten excessive prosperity." (Church and Brodribb.)]

78 (return) [ About $15,000.]

79 (return) [ About $42,000.]

80 (return) [ None had the right of using family pictures or statues but those whose ancestors or themselves had borne some of the highest dignities. So that the jus imaginis was much the same thing among the Romans as the right of bearing a coat of arms among us. Ken. Antiq. M.]

81 (return) [ The Roman physicians used to send their patients in consumptive cases into Egypt, particularly to Alexandria. M.]

82 (return) [ Frejus, in Provence, the southern part of France. M.]

83 (return) [ A court of justice erected by Julius Cæsar in the forum, and opposite to the basilica Aemilia.]

84 (return) [ The deceniviri seem to have been magistrates for the administration of justice, subordinate to the praetors, who (to give the English reader a general notion of their office) may be termed lords chief justices, as the judges here mentioned were something in the nature of our juries. M.]

85 (return) [ About $400.]

86 (return) [ This silly piece of superstition seems to have been peculiar to Regulus, and not of any general practice; at least it is a custom of which we find no other mention in antiquity. M.]

87 (return) [ "We gather from Martial that the wearing of these was not an unusual practice with fops and dandies." See Epig. II. 29, in which he ridicules a certain Rufus, and hints that if you were to "strip off the 'splenia (plasters)' from his face, you would find out that he was a branded runaway slave." (Church and Brodribb.)]

88 (return) [ His wife.]

89 (return) [ Hom. II. lib, I. V. 88.]

90 (return) [ Now Alzia, not far from Corno.]

91 (return) [ Nevertheless, Javolentis Priscus was one of the most eminent lawyers of his time, and is frequently quoted in the Digesta of Justinian.]

92 (return) [ In the Bay of Naples.]

93 (return) [ The Romans used to lie or walk naked in the sun, after anointing their bodies with oil, which was esteemed as greatly contributing to health, and therefore daily practised by them. This custom, however, of anointing themselves, is inveighed against by the Satirists as in the number of their luxurious indulgences: but since we find the elder Pliny here, and the amiable Spurinna in a former letter, practising this method, we can not suppose the thing itself was esteemed unmanly, but only when it was attended with some particular circumstances of an over-refined delicacy. M.]

94 (return) [ Now called Castelamare, in the Bay of Naples. M.]

95 (return) [ The Stoic and Epicurean philosophers held that the world was to be destroyed by fire, and all things fall again into original chaos; not excepting even the national gods themselves from the destruction of this general conflagration. M.]

96 (return) [ The lake Larius.]

97 (return) [ Those families were styled patrician whose ancestors had been members of the senate in the earliest times of the regal or consular government. M.]

98 (return) [ Trajan]

99 (return) [ The consuls, though they were chosen in August, did not enter upon their office till the first of January, during which interval they were styled consules designati, consuls elect. It was usual for them upon that occasion to compliment the emperor, by whose appointment, after the dissolution of the republican government, they were chosen. M.]

100 (return) [ So called, because it formerly belonged to Camillus. M.]

101 (return) [ Civita Vecchia.]

102 (return) [ Trajan.]

103 (return) [ An officer in the Roman legions, answering in some sort to a captain In our companies. M.]

104 (return) [ This law was made by Augustus Cæsar; but it nowhere clearly appears what was the peculiar punishment it inflicted. M.]

105 (return) [ An officer employed by the emperor to receive and regulate the public revenue in the provinces. M.]

106 (return) [ Comprehending Transylvania, Moldavia, and Walaehia. M.]

107 (return) [ Polycletus was a freedman, and great favourite of Nero. M.]

108 (return) [ Memmius, or Rhemmius (the critics are not agreed which), was author of a law by which it was enacted that whosoever was convicted of calumny and false accusation should be stigmatised with a mark in his forehead; and by the law of the twelve tables, false accusers were to suffer the same punishment as would have been inflicted upon the person unjustly accused if the crime had been proved. M.]

109 (return) [ Trajan.]

110 (return) [ Unction was much esteemed and prescribed by the ancients. Celsus expressly recommends it in the remission of acute distempers: "ungi leniterque pertractari corpus, etiam in acutic et recentibus niorbis opartet; us rernissione fumen," &c. Celsi Med. ed. Aliucloveen, p. 88. M.]

111 (return) [ His wife.]

112 (return) [ See book V. letter XX.]

113 (return) [ Trajan.]

114 (return) [ One of the Bithynians employed to manage the trial. M.]

115 (return) [ About $28,000.]

116 (return) [ About $26,000.]

117 (return) [ There is a kind of witticism in this expression, which will be lost to the mere English reader unless he be informed that the Romans had a privilege, confirmed to them by several laws which passed in the earlier ages of the republic, of appealing from the decisions of the magistrates to the general assembly of the people: and they did so in the form of words which Pomponius here applies to a different purpose. M.]

118 (return) [ The priests, as well as other magistrates, exhibited public games to the people when they entered upon their office. M.]

119 (return) [ A famous lawyer who flourished in the reign of the emperor Claudius: those who followed his opinions were said to be Cassians, or of the school of Cassius. M.]

120 (return) [ A Stoic philosopher and native of Tarsus. He was tutor for some time to Octavius, afterwards Augustus, Cæsar.]

121 (return) [ Balzac very prettily observes: "Il y a des riviere: qui ne font jamais tact de bien que quand elles se dibordent; de eneme, l'amitie n'a mealleur quo l'exces." M.]

122 (return) [ Persons of rank and literature among the Romans retained in their families a domestic whose sole business was to read to them. M.]

123 (return) [ It was a doctrine maintained by the Stoics that all crimes are equal M.]

124 (return) [ About $400.]

125 (return) [ About $600.]

126 (return) [ About $93.]

127 (return) [ Hom. II. lib. IX. V. 319.]

128 (return) [ Those of Nero and Domitian. M.]