Book 6

1.1. As long as I was across the Po and you in Picenum, I missed you less; now that I am in the city and you are still in Picenum, much more — whether because the very places in which we are accustomed to be together remind me more keenly of you, or because longing for the absent is sharpened by nothing so much as nearness, and the closer you have come to the hope of enjoyment, the more impatiently you go without it.

1.2. Whatever the cause, rescue me from this torment. Come, or I shall return to the place from which I so unthinkingly hurried away — if only to test whether, when you have begun to be at Rome without me, you will send me letters like these. Farewell.

2.1. I sometimes find myself, in the courts, looking for Marcus Regulus; for I do not wish to say "missing."

2.2. Why, then, do I look for him? He paid honour to the studies: he was anxious, he grew pale, he wrote, although he could not commit to memory. That very thing — that he used to paint one eye, now the right, now the left, with ointment (the right if he was to plead for the plaintiff, the other if for the defendant); that he would transfer a white patch from this brow to that; that he always consulted the soothsayers about the outcome of his pleading — came from excessive superstition, but yet also from a great respect for the studies.

2.3. And then those things, exceedingly agreeable to those pleading together: that he asked for unlimited time, that he canvassed for an audience. For what is more agreeable than to speak at one's ease, as long as you please, under cover of another man's odium, and in another man's audience, as though caught by surprise?

2.4. But however these things stand, Regulus did well to die — better, had he done it sooner. As it is, indeed, he might well have lived without harm to the public, under a prince under whom he could do no harm.

2.5. For this reason it is permitted sometimes to look for him. For, since he died, there has crept in everywhere and grown strong the custom of granting and asking for two or one water-clocks, sometimes even half a one. For both those who plead would rather have pleaded than be pleading, and those who listen would rather end than judge. So great is the carelessness, so great the indolence, so great, in short, the irreverence toward studies and toward men's perils.

2.6. Are we, then, wiser than our forefathers, more just than the very laws, which grant so many hours, so many days, so many adjournments? They were dull and beyond measure slow; we speak more plainly, understand more quickly, judge more scrupulously — because we hurry causes through in fewer water-clocks than they used to be unfolded in days.

2.7. O Regulus, who by canvassing obtained from all what very few render to good faith! For my part, whenever I judge — which I do even oftener than I plead — I grant whoever asks the most water that he asks for.

2.8. For I think it rash to divine how spacious a case is before it is heard, and to set a limit of time for a business whose measure you do not know, especially since a judge owes, first of all, patience to his conscience, which is a great part of justice. But some things, you say, are said that are superfluous. Granted; but it is better that even these be said than that necessary things be left unsaid.

2.9. Besides, whether they are superfluous, you cannot know until you have heard them. But of these things better face to face, as of many other faults of the state. For you too, out of love of the common good, are wont to wish corrected what it is now hard to set right.

2.10. Now let us look back to our own homes. Is all well with yours? With mine there is nothing new. To me, however, my blessings are the more welcome because they continue, and my troubles the lighter because I have grown used to them. Farewell.

3.1. I thank you for having taken charge of cultivating the little farm which I had given to my nurse. It was worth, when I gave it, a hundred thousand sesterces; afterwards, as the income decreased, the price too fell, which now, under your care, it will recover.

3.2. Only remember that what I commend to you is not the trees and the land — although these too — but my little gift, which it concerns no more her who received it than me who gave it that it be as fruitful as possible. Farewell.

4.1. Never have I complained more of my occupations, which did not suffer me either to escort you, as you set out for Campania for your health's sake, or, when you had set out, to follow at once in your steps.

4.2. For now especially I wished to be with you, that I might trust to my own eyes what you were providing in the way of strength and bodily care, and, in short, whether you were passing the pleasures of retirement and the abundance of the region without hurt.

4.3. Indeed, I should long for you, even in good health, not without anxiety; for it is a thing of suspense and worry sometimes to know nothing of one whom you love most ardently.

4.4. But now the thought both of your absence and of your illness terrifies me with an uncertain and shifting anxiety. I fear everything, I imagine everything, and — as is the way of the fearful — I picture to myself above all those things that I most abominate.

4.5. The more earnestly do I ask that you consult my fear daily, with one or even two letters. For I shall be more at ease while I am reading, and shall fear again the moment I have read. Farewell.

5.1. I had written that Varenus had carried his point, that he should be allowed to summon witnesses; which seemed to most fair, but to some unfair, and that obstinately — most of all to Licinius Nepos, who, at the following session, when other matters were being brought forward, discoursed on the recent decree of the Senate and reopened a settled case.

5.2. He added, too, that it should be requested of the consuls that they bring forward, after the model of the law on canvassing, the question concerning the law on extortion: whether it should please the Senate that there be added to that law, for the future, that, just as accusers had under it the power of holding an inquiry and serving notice on witnesses, so it should be granted to defendants too.

5.3. There were some to whom this speech of his was displeasing, as late and unseasonable and preposterous, in that, having let pass the time for speaking against the measure, it censured what was already done, which it might have met.

5.4. The praetor Juventius Celsus, indeed, rebuked him, both with many words and vehemently, as a would-be corrector of the Senate. Nepos answered, and again Celsus; neither refrained from insults.

5.5. I do not wish to report what I was sorry to hear said by them. So much the more did I disapprove of certain ones of our number, who ran now to Celsus, now to Nepos, according as this one or that was speaking, out of eagerness to hear, and now seemed as if to goad and inflame them, now as if to reconcile and recompose; and they prayed, more often for each singly, sometimes for both, that Caesar would be gracious, as if at some show.

5.6. To me, indeed, this too was most bitter, that it was disclosed to each what the other was preparing. For Celsus answered Nepos from a memorial, and Nepos answered Celsus from his note-tablets.

5.7. So great was the talkativeness of their friends, that men about to quarrel knew that very thing about each other, as though by agreement. Farewell.

6.1. If ever, now especially I should wish you to be at Rome, and I beg that you be. I have need of a partner in my prayer, my labour, my anxiety. Julius Naso is seeking office; he seeks it with many, with good men, whom to surpass is as glorious as it is difficult.

6.2. So I am in suspense and exercised by hope, affected by fear, and I do not feel myself a consular; for again I seem to myself a candidate for all the offices through which I have run.

6.3. He deserves this anxiety by his long affection for me. There is between me and him a friendship not, indeed, inherited from my father — for it could not be, considering my age; yet his father used to be pointed out to me, when I was scarcely more than a boy, with great praise. He was most fond not only of studies but of the studious, and almost daily he would come to hear those whom I then frequented, Quintilian and Niceta Sacerdos — a man otherwise distinguished and grave, and one who, by his memory, ought to benefit his son.

6.4. But there are many now in the Senate to whom he was unknown, many to whom he was known, but who revere none save the living. The more must this man, leaving aside his father's glory — in which there is great adornment but weak influence — strive and labour by himself.

6.5. And this indeed he has always done diligently, as if foreseeing this time: he has gained friends, and those he had gained he has cultivated; me, at least, as soon as he was allowed to judge for himself, he chose for affection and imitation.

6.6. When I plead, he stands by anxiously, he sits by when I recite; he is present too at my first works, and those even as they are coming to birth — now alone, before with his brother, whose part, lately lost, I owe to take up, whose place I owe to fill.

6.7. For I grieve both that the brother was most undeservedly snatched away by an untimely death, and that this one is left destitute of his excellent brother's support, and abandoned to his friends alone.

6.8. For these reasons I require that you come, and join your vote to mine. It concerns me greatly to display you, to go round with you. Such is your authority that I think I shall the more effectively entreat even my own friends with you beside me.

6.9. Break off whatever holds you: this my occasion, this my good faith, this too my dignity demands. I have taken up a candidate, and that I have taken him up is known; it is I who canvass, I who am at risk; in short, if Naso is granted what he seeks, it is his honour; if it is refused, it is my rejection. Farewell.

7.1. You write that you are affected by my absence in no slight degree, and that you have one consolation: that, in my stead, you keep my little books, and often even set them in my place.

7.2. It is welcome that you miss me, welcome that you find rest in these comforts; in turn I read your letters again and again, and ever and again take them up as if they were new.

7.3. But by this very thing I am the more kindled to longing for you; for one whose letters have so much sweetness — how much charm is in his conversation! Yet write as often as you can, although this delights me in such a way as also to torment me. Farewell.

8.1. Atilius Crescens you both know and love. For who, of any little distinction, either does not know him or does not love him? Him I love, not as many do, but most closely.

8.2. Our towns are separated by a single day's journey; we began to love one another — which is the most ardent kind of love — when we were quite young. This love remained afterwards, nor did it cool with judgement, but grew stronger. Those who look on either of us more familiarly know this. For he both spreads abroad the praise of my friendship most widely, and I make open profession how greatly I care for his modesty, his peace, his security.

8.3. Nay more, when he feared the insolence of a certain man about to enter on a tribunate of the plebs, and had told me of it, I answered: "Not while I live, shall anyone." To what end this? That you may know that Atilius cannot suffer wrong while I am safe.

8.4. Again you will say, "To what end this?" Valerius Varus owed him money. Of this Varus our Maximus is the heir, whom I too love, but you more closely.

8.5. I ask, then — nay, I even demand, by the right of friendship — that you see to it that there be saved for my Atilius not only the principal but also the interest of several years. He is a man most abstinent from another's property, careful of his own; he is supported by no profits, he has no income save from frugality.

8.6. For the studies, in which he most excels, he pursues only for pleasure and glory. To him even the smallest loss is grievous; though to make good what you have lost is more grievous still.

8.7. Remove this scruple from him, remove it from me: let me enjoy his sweetness, his pleasantries. For I cannot bear to see sad one whose cheerfulness will not suffer me to be sad.

8.8. In short, you know the man's wit; which I should wish you to attend to, lest a wrong turn it to gall and bitterness. What force he has when offended, judge from that which he has in love. A great and free spirit will not bear loss together with insult.

8.9. But, even though he should bear it, I shall judge it my own loss, my own insult — yet I shall be angry not as though on my own behalf, that is, the more bitterly. Though why do I deal in threats and, as it were, menaces? Why not rather, as I had begun, ask, beg, that you take pains that he may not think himself — what I most greatly fear — neglected by me, nor I myself neglected by you? And you will so take pains, if this is as much your care as the other is mine. Farewell.

9.1. You commend to me Julius Naso, a candidate. Naso to me? What if you commended me myself? Yet I bear it and pardon it. For I should have commended the same man to you, had you been staying at Rome while I myself were away.

9.2. Anxiety has this quality, that it thinks everything necessary. Still, I advise you to ask others; I shall be the servant, helper, and partner of your prayers. Farewell.

10.1. When I had come to my mother-in-law's villa at Alsium, which for some time belonged to Rufus Verginius, the very place renewed in me, not without grief, the longing for that excellent and very great man. For he used to cherish this retreat, and even to call it the little nest of his old age.

10.2. Wherever I betook myself, my mind, my eyes sought him. I had a wish, too, to see his monument, and was sorry to have seen it.

10.3. For it is still unfinished — and the difficulty of the work is not the cause, it being modest, or rather slight, but the sloth of him to whom the charge was entrusted. Indignation, mixed with pity, rises up, that after the tenth year from his death the remains and neglected ashes lie without inscription, without a name — whose memory ranges over the whole world in glory.

10.4. Yet he had directed and provided that that divine and immortal deed be inscribed in verse: "Here lies Rufus, who once, having driven out Vindex, claimed the empire not for himself but for his country."

10.5. So rare is faith in friendships, so ready the forgetting of the dead, that we ought ourselves to build even our own tombs and anticipate all the duties of heirs.

10.6. For who need not fear what we see has happened to Verginius? — whose wrong his own fame makes both the more unworthy and the more notorious. Farewell.

11.1. O joyful day! Called into council by the prefect of the city, I heard pleading on opposite sides two young men of the highest promise and the highest natural gifts, Fuscus Salinator and Ummidius Quadratus, an admirable pair, destined to be an ornament not only to our times but to letters themselves.

11.2. Wonderful in both was their integrity, their composure unimpaired, a becoming dress, a Latin diction, a manly voice, a tenacious memory, a great talent, a balanced judgement; each of which was a pleasure to me, and among these that very thing, that they both looked to me as their guide, as their master, and that, to those who heard, they seemed to be rivalling me, to be treading in my footsteps.

11.3. O joyful day — for I will repeat it — and to be marked by me with the whitest stone! For what is either more joyful for the public than that the most distinguished young men should seek name and fame from studies, or more to be wished by me than that I should be set, as it were, as a model to those tending toward what is right?

11.4. That I may take this joy forever, I pray the gods; from the same gods, with you as witness, I ask that all who shall think it worthwhile to imitate me may wish to be better than me. Farewell.

12.1. You ought not, in truth, to commend to me with a hesitant hand those whom you think should be protected. For it befits both you to be of use to many and me to take up whatever pertains to your care.

12.2. And so I shall give to Bittius Priscus as much as I most possibly can, especially on my own sand — that is, before the Court of the Hundred.

12.3. The letters, which, as you say, you wrote me "with open heart," you bid me forget; but there are none I remember more gladly. For from them I perceive, even above all, how greatly you love me, since you have dealt with me as you used to deal with your own son.

12.4. Nor do I conceal that they were the more pleasant to me because I had a good case, having with the utmost zeal seen to what you wished to be seen to.

12.5. Therefore again and again I ask that you always, with the same frankness, scold me whenever I shall seem to be slack — "shall seem," I say, for I shall never be slack — which I shall both understand to proceed from the greatest love, and you shall rejoice that I did not deserve it. Farewell.

13.1. Have you ever seen anyone so harassed and tried as my Varenus? — who has had to defend, and as it were to seek again, what he had obtained with the utmost contention.

13.2. The Bithynians dared to carp at and undermine the decree of the Senate before the consuls, and even to slander it to the absent prince; remanded by him to the Senate, they did not desist. Claudius Capito pleaded irreverently rather than firmly, as one accusing a decree of the Senate before the Senate.

13.3. Catius Fronto answered gravely and firmly. The Senate itself was wonderful; for even those who had before refused Varenus what he sought, voted that the same should be given, since it had been given;

13.4. for, while the matter was undecided, it was lawful for individuals to dissent; but, once it was settled, what had pleased the majority must be upheld by all.

13.5. Only Acilius Rufus, and with him seven or eight — seven, rather — persisted in the former opinion. There were in this small number not a few whose temporary gravity, or rather imitation of gravity, was laughed at.

13.6. Yet judge how much of the contest remains for us in the battle itself, of which this, as it were, prelude and forerunning has stirred up these disputes. Farewell.

14.1. You press me to come to your place at Formiae. I will come, on this condition: that you do nothing contrary to your own convenience; by which bargain I in turn make provision for myself. For it is not the sea and the shore but you, leisure, freedom, that I seek; otherwise it is better to remain in the city.

14.2. For one must do everything either at another's pleasure or at one's own. The nature of my temper, at least, is such that it wishes nothing but the whole and unmixed. Farewell.

15.1. You were not present at a marvellous thing; nor was I either, but a fresh tale caught me. Passennus Paulus, a distinguished Roman knight and, among the first, a learned one, writes elegies. This is hereditary in him: for he is a fellow townsman of Propertius, and even numbers Propertius among his ancestors.

15.2. When he was reciting, he began thus: "Priscus, you bid me...". To this Javolenus Priscus — for he was present, being a great friend of Paulus — said: "But I do not bid you." Imagine the laughter of the company, the jests.

15.3. Priscus is, on the whole, of doubtful sanity, yet he takes part in public duties, is called into councils, and even gives public responses on civil law: which makes what he did then both the more ridiculous and the more notable.

15.4. Meanwhile another man's folly brought no little chill upon Paulus. So carefully must those who are about to recite provide, not only that they themselves be sane, but that they bring sane men to hear them. Farewell.

16.1. You ask that I write you of my uncle's death, that you may be able to hand it down more truly to posterity. I thank you; for I see that an immortal glory is set before his death, if it be made famous by you.

16.2. For although he perished in the destruction of most beautiful lands, as did peoples and cities, by a memorable disaster — as though destined always to live — and although he himself founded many and lasting works, yet the eternity of your writings will add much to his perpetuity.

16.3. For my part I count those happy to whom it has been granted, by the gift of the gods, either to do things worthy of being written, or to write things worthy of being read; but most happy those to whom both. In the number of these my uncle will be, both by his own books and by yours. The more gladly do I undertake, even demand, what you lay upon me.

16.4. He was at Misenum and was commanding the fleet in person. On the ninth day before the Kalends of September, about the seventh hour, my mother points out to him that a cloud was appearing, of unusual size and shape.

16.5. He had taken his sun-bath, then a cold one, had eaten lying down, and was studying; he asks for his sandals, and climbs to a place from which that marvel could best be observed. A cloud was rising — those who looked from a distance could not tell from which mountain; it was afterwards known to have been Vesuvius — whose likeness and form no other tree would express better than a pine.

16.6. For, raised aloft on what was, as it were, a very tall trunk, it spread out into certain branches — I believe because, borne up by a fresh blast, then, as that grew faint, left without support, or even overcome by its own weight, it dissolved into breadth — at times white, at times dirty and spotted, according as it had carried up earth or ash.

16.7. To so learned a man it seemed a great thing and one to be examined more closely. He orders a light galley to be made ready; he gives me leave, if I wished, to come along with him; I replied that I preferred to study, and, as it happened, he himself had given me something to write.

16.8. He was going out of the house when he receives a note from Rectina, the wife of Tascius, terrified by the imminent danger — for her villa lay beneath, and there was no escape except by ships: she begged that he rescue her from so great a peril.

16.9. He changed his plan, and what he had begun in the spirit of a student he carried out in the spirit of a hero. He launches the quadriremes, goes aboard himself, to bring aid not only to Rectina but to many — for that lovely coast was thickly settled.

16.10. He hastens thither, whence others flee, and holds a straight course, a straight helm, into the danger, so free from fear that he dictated and noted down all the movements, all the shapes of that calamity, as he caught them with his eyes.

16.11. Now ash was falling on the ships, hotter and denser the closer they approached; now even pumice-stones, and stones black and scorched and shattered by fire; now a sudden shallow, and shores made impassable by the ruin of the mountain. Having hesitated a little whether to turn back, he soon said to the helmsman, who advised him to do so: "Fortune favours the brave: make for Pomponianus."

16.12. Pomponianus was at Stabiae, cut off by the middle of the bay — for the sea pours in along the gradually curving and bending shores; there, although the danger was not yet near, yet it was in view and, as it grew, close at hand, and he had carried his baggage aboard the ships, resolved on flight if the contrary wind should drop. Borne in by this very wind, then most favourable, my uncle embraces the trembling man, consoles and encourages him, and, that he might calm his fear by his own security, orders himself to be carried to the bath; washed, he reclines and dines, either cheerful or — what is equally great — seeming cheerful.

16.13. Meanwhile, from Mount Vesuvius, in many places, broadest flames and lofty fires shone out, whose glare and brightness were heightened by the darkness of the night. He, to remedy their fear, kept saying that these were fires left by the panic of the country folk, and deserted villas burning in the solitude. Then he gave himself to rest, and rested in a most genuine sleep; for the passage of his breath, which on account of the bulk of his body was rather heavy and loud, was heard by those who waited at the threshold.

16.14. But the court from which his apartment was entered had by now so risen, filled with ash mixed with pumice, that, if there were a longer delay in the chamber, the way out would be denied. Roused, he comes forth, and rejoins Pomponianus and the others who had stayed awake through the night.

16.15. They take counsel together, whether to remain under the roofs or to wander in the open. For with frequent and vast tremors the buildings were swaying, and, as if moved from their foundations, seemed now to go this way, now that, or to be carried back.

16.16. Under the open sky, again, the fall of the pumice, though light and porous, was feared; which, however, the comparison of dangers chose; and with him, indeed, reason overcame reason, with the others fear overcame fear. They tie pillows, placed upon their heads, with cloths; that was a defence against what fell.

16.17. Elsewhere it was now day, but there a night blacker and denser than all nights; which, however, many torches and various lights relieved. It was decided to go out to the shore, and to see from close at hand whether the sea now allowed anything; but it still remained wild and adverse.

16.18. There, reclining on a cast-off cloth, he asked once and again for cold water and drank it. Then flames, and the herald of flames, the smell of sulphur, put the others to flight and rouse him.

16.19. Leaning on two slaves, he rose, and at once fell back, because, as I conclude, his breathing was obstructed by the thicker vapour, and his windpipe closed, which in him was by nature weak and narrow and frequently inflamed.

16.20. When day returned — it was the third from that which he had last seen — his body was found whole and unharmed, covered as he had been clothed: the appearance of the body was more like one resting than one dead.

16.21. Meanwhile, at Misenum, I and my mother — but this is nothing to the history, nor did you wish to know anything but of his death. So I will make an end.

16.22. One thing I will add: that I have set down all that I either was present at or had heard at the very time, when true things are best remembered. You will pick out the most important; for it is one thing to write a letter, another a history; one thing to write to a friend, another to all. Farewell.

17.1. A little touch of indignation, which I took at the lecture-room of a certain friend, I cannot help but pour out to you in a letter, since I had no chance to do so face to face. A most finished book was being read.

17.2. Two or three men, eloquent, as they seem to themselves and to a few, listened to it like deaf-mutes. They did not part their lips, did not move a hand, did not finally even rise, if only out of weariness of sitting.

17.3. What is this great gravity? this great wisdom? — nay, what laziness, arrogance, perversity, or rather madness, to spend a whole day in giving offence, in leaving an enemy of one to whom you came as if a most dear friend? Are you yourself more eloquent?

17.4. So much the more do not be envious; for he who envies is the lesser. In short, whether you do more, or less, or the same, praise either the inferior or the superior or the equal: the superior, because unless he be praised you cannot yourself be praised; the inferior or the equal, because it bears on your glory that he whom you surpass or equal should seem as great as possible.

17.5. For my part, I am wont to venerate and even to admire all who do anything in the studies; for it is a thing difficult, arduous, fastidious, and one that scorns in turn those by whom it is scorned. Unless perhaps you judge otherwise. And yet, who is more respectful of this work than you alone, who a kindlier appraiser?

17.6. Led by this consideration, I have disclosed my indignation to you above all others, whom I could most have as a fellow-feeler. Farewell.

18.1. You ask that I plead the public cause of the people of Firmum; which, although distracted by very many occupations, I will strive to do. For I wish both to oblige a most distinguished colony by the office of advocacy, and to bind you by a service most welcome to you.

18.2. For since you have taken up our friendship, as you are wont to declare, as a protection and an ornament to yourself, there is nothing I ought to refuse you, especially when you ask on behalf of your homeland. For what is either more honourable than the prayers of the dutiful, or more effective than those of the loving?

18.3. So pledge my good faith to your people of Firmum — and now rather to ours; whom that they are worthy of my labour and zeal both their own distinction and, above all, this promises, that it is credible they are the best men, among whom you have shown yourself such a man. Farewell.

19.1. Do you know that the price of land has risen, especially of suburban land? The cause of the sudden dearness has been much discussed. At the recent elections the Senate gave utterance to most honourable words: "Let candidates not give banquets, not send gifts, not deposit sums of money."

19.2. Of these the first two were done as openly as immoderately; this third, though concealed, was held for certain.

19.3. Then our Homullus, watchfully using this consensus of the Senate, demanded, when it was his turn to speak, that the consuls make known to the prince the desire of all, and ask that, as he had met other vices, so by his foresight he meet this one too.

19.4. He met it; for those expenses of candidates, foul and infamous, he restrained by the law on canvassing; the same men he ordered to invest a third part of their estate in property held in land — judging it unseemly (and so it was) that those about to seek office should treat the city and Italy not as a homeland but as an inn or a stable, as if mere travellers.

19.5. So the candidates run about; they vie in buying up whatever they hear is for sale, and make more things for sale by so doing.

19.6. Accordingly, if you regret your Italian estates, this is the time to sell, and just as much, by Hercules, to buy in the provinces, while the same candidates sell there in order to buy here. Farewell.

20.1. You say that, moved by the letter which I wrote you, at your request, about my uncle's death, you wish to learn what fears and even what perils I, left behind at Misenum — for I had broken off there, just begun — endured. "Although my mind shudders to remember, I will begin."

20.2. After my uncle had set out, I myself spent the rest of the time on my studies — for that was why I had stayed behind; then a bath, dinner, a sleep restless and brief.

20.3. For many days before there had been an earth-tremor, the less terrifying because it was usual in Campania; but on that night it grew so strong that all things seemed not so much to be moved as to be overturned.

20.4. My mother burst into my chamber; I was rising in turn, to wake her if she should be sleeping. We sat down in the court of the house, which separated the sea from the buildings by a modest space.

20.5. I doubt whether I should call it firmness or imprudence — for I was in my eighteenth year: I ask for a book of Titus Livius, and read it as if at leisure, and even, as I had begun, make extracts. Lo, a friend of my uncle's, who had lately come to him from Spain, when he sees me and my mother sitting, and me even reading, rebukes her patience and my unconcern. None the less intent was I upon my book.

20.6. It was now the first hour of the day, and still the daylight was doubtful and as it were languid. Now, the surrounding buildings being shaken, although in an open place, yet a narrow one, there was great and certain fear of ruin.

20.7. Then at last it seemed best to leave the town; the bewildered crowd follows, and — what in panic resembles prudence — prefers another's counsel to its own, and presses and drives those departing in a huge column.

20.8. Having gone out beyond the buildings, we halt. There we suffer many marvels, many terrors. For the vehicles which we had ordered to be brought out, although on the levellest ground, were driven in opposite directions, and would not stay in the same track even when propped with stones.

20.9. Besides, we saw the sea being sucked back into itself and, as it were, repelled by the trembling of the earth. Certainly the shore had advanced, and held many sea-creatures on the dry sands. On the other side a black and dreadful cloud, broken by twisting and quivering bursts of fiery breath, gaped open into long shapes of flame; these were both like lightnings and greater.

20.10. Then indeed that same friend from Spain spoke more keenly and urgently: "If your brother, your uncle, lives, he wishes you to be safe; if he has perished, he wished you to survive. Why then do you delay to escape?" We answered that we would not commit ourselves to consulting our own safety while uncertain of his.

20.11. Delaying no longer, he tears himself away and is borne off from the danger at a headlong run. Not long after, that cloud descends to the earth, covers the seas; it had girdled Capri and hidden it, had carried off from sight the headland of Misenum.

20.12. Then my mother began to beg, to urge, to command, that I flee by any means; that I could, being young; that she, weighed down by years and by body, would die well, if she had not been the cause of my death. I, on the contrary, said I would not be safe except together with her; then, taking her hand, I compel her to quicken her pace. She obeys with difficulty, and blames herself for delaying me.

20.13. Now ash, though still scattered. I look back: a dense darkness loomed at our backs, which, poured over the earth like a torrent, was following us. "Let us turn aside," I said, "while we can see, lest, thrown down in the road, we be trampled in the dark by the crowd of those accompanying us."

20.14. Scarcely had we sat down when night came — not such as when there is no moon or it is cloudy, but such as in closed places when the light is put out. You might hear the wailing of women, the cries of infants, the shouts of men; some were seeking with their voices their parents, others their children, others their wives, and recognizing them by their voices; some bewailed their own fate, others that of their kin; there were those who, in fear of death, prayed for death;

20.15. many lifted their hands to the gods, more interpreted that there were now nowhere any gods, and that this was that eternal and last night for the world. Nor were there lacking those who augmented real perils by feigned and lying terrors. There were present those who reported, falsely but to believers, that one part of Misenum had fallen, another was on fire.

20.16. There was a little gleam of light, which seemed to us not daylight but the sign of approaching fire. And the fire indeed halted farther off; darkness again, ash again, much and heavy. This, rising up again and again, we shook off; otherwise we should have been covered, and even crushed, by the weight.

20.17. I might boast that not a groan, not a too-cowardly word, escaped me in such great perils, had I not believed that I was perishing along with all things, and all things along with me — a wretched, yet great, consolation in my mortality.

20.18. At last that darkness, thinned, departed as if into smoke or mist; soon there was true day; the sun even shone forth, but lurid, such as it is wont to be in an eclipse. To our eyes, still trembling, all things appeared changed, and covered with deep ash as with snow.

20.19. Having returned to Misenum, and refreshed our bodies as best we could, we passed a night of suspense and doubt between hope and fear. Fear prevailed; for both the earth-tremor continued, and very many, frenzied, mocked their own and others' ills with terrifying prophecies.

20.20. Yet even then, although we had both experienced peril and expected it, no thought of going away occurred to us, until there should be news of my uncle. These things, by no means worthy of a history, you will read, not meaning to write them down, and you will reckon it to yourself, who asked for them, if they seem unworthy even of a letter. Farewell.

21.1. I am one of those who admire the ancients, yet I do not — as some do — despise the talents of our own times. For Nature does not, as though weary and worn out, now bring forth nothing praiseworthy.

21.2. And indeed I lately heard Vergilius Romanus reading, to a few, a comedy written after the model of the old comedy, so well that it might one day itself be a model.

21.3. I do not know whether you know the man, though you ought to; for he is conspicuous by his uprightness of character, his elegance of talent, and the variety of his works.

21.4. He has written mimiambics, delicately, wittily, gracefully, and in this kind most eloquently; for there is no kind which, when perfect, cannot be called most eloquent. He has written comedies, emulating Menander and others of the same age; you may number these among those of Plautus and Terence.

21.5. Now for the first time he has shown himself in the old comedy, but not as though he were a beginner. He lacked not force, not grandeur, not subtlety, not bitterness, not sweetness, not charm: he adorned the virtues, he assailed the vices; he used fictitious names becomingly, real ones aptly.

21.6. About me only, out of excessive kindness, he exceeded measure — except that, after all, poets are allowed to lie.

21.7. In short, I will wrest the book from him and send it to you to read, nay, to learn by heart; for I do not doubt that it will come about that you will not lay it down once you have taken it up. Farewell.

22.1. A great matter has been decided, of concern to all who are to govern provinces, a great matter to all who frankly trust their friends.

22.2. Lustricius Bruttianus, when he had caught his companion Montanius Atticinus in many disgraceful acts, wrote to Caesar. Atticinus added to his disgraces by accusing the man he had deceived. The inquiry was taken up; I was in the council. Each pleaded for himself, but pleaded piecemeal and head by head, by which kind the truth is at once made plain.

22.3. Bruttianus produced his will, which he said was written in the hand of Atticinus; for by this both the secret intimacy and the necessity of complaining about one he had so loved were shown.

22.4. He recounted crimes, foul and manifest; which, since the other could not refute them, he so countered that, while he defended himself, he was proved base, and while he accused, criminal. For, having corrupted a slave of the clerk, he had intercepted the records and tampered with them, and, by the utmost wickedness, was using against his friend his own crime.

22.5. Caesar acted most admirably: for he put the question, not about Bruttianus, but at once about Atticinus. He was condemned and banished to an island; to Bruttianus was rendered a most just testimony of integrity, whom indeed the glory of firmness too followed.

22.6. For, having been defended most readily, he accused vehemently, and appeared no less keen than good and sincere.

22.7. I have written this to you, that I might forewarn you, who have drawn a province by lot, to trust yourself most of all, and to confide in no one too fully; and then, that you may know that, if anyone by chance deceive you — which I abominate — vengeance is ready. Yet, that there may be no need of it, attend again and again;

22.8. for it is not so pleasant to be avenged as it is wretched to be deceived. Farewell.

23.1. You earnestly ask that I plead a cause pertaining to your charge, in other respects a fine and famous one. I will, but not for nothing. "How can it be," you say, "that you do not do it for nothing?" It can: for I shall exact a fee more honourable than gratuitous advocacy.

23.2. I ask, and even make it a condition, that Cremutius Ruso plead along with me. This is usual with me, and now done repeatedly with several distinguished young men; for I wonderfully long to show good young men to the forum, to assign them to fame.

23.3. And if to anyone, I ought to render this to my Ruso, both for the sake of his birth and for his singular affection for me; whom I value greatly to be seen and heard in the same trials, and even on the same side.

23.4. Oblige me, oblige me before he pleads; for when he has pleaded you will thank me. I pledge that he will be equal to your anxiety, to my hope, to the greatness of the cause. He is of the best natural gifts, and will shortly bring forward others, if in the meantime he is advanced by us.

23.5. For no one has a talent so brilliant at once that he can emerge, unless to him there fall a subject, an occasion, and a patron and recommender too. Farewell.

24.1. How great a difference it makes who does a thing! For the same deeds, by the fame or obscurity of those who do them, are either raised to the heights or sunk to the depths.

24.2. I was sailing on our Larian lake, when an older friend pointed out to me a villa, and even a chamber that juts out over the lake: "From this," he said, "once a fellow townswoman of ours threw herself, with her husband."

24.3. I asked the reason. Her husband was rotting from a long disease, with ulcers about the parts that must be veiled; his wife insisted on examining them, for none would tell him more faithfully whether he could be cured.

24.4. She saw, she despaired, she urged him to die, and was herself the companion of his death — nay, the leader, the example, the compulsion; for she bound herself to her husband and threw herself into the lake.

24.5. This deed, though I am a fellow townsman, I had not heard of until lately, not because it is less than that most famous deed of Arria, but because she herself was less. Farewell.

25.1. You write that Robustus, a distinguished Roman knight, made the journey, as far as Ocriculum, in company with my friend Atilius Scaurus, and then nowhere appeared; you ask that Scaurus come and lead us, if he can, into some traces of the inquiry.

25.2. He will come; I fear in vain. For I suspect that some such thing has happened to Robustus as once to Metilius Crispus, a fellow townsman of mine.

25.3. For him I had obtained the rank of centurion, and even, on his setting out, had given him forty thousand sesterces to equip and outfit himself; nor afterwards did I receive either letters from him or any news of his end.

25.4. Whether he was cut off by his own men, or together with his own, is doubtful; certainly neither he himself nor any of his slaves appeared, just as none of Robustus's did either.

25.5. Let us try, nonetheless; let us summon Scaurus; let us grant this to your people, let us grant it to the most honourable prayers of an excellent young man, who with wonderful devotion, and wonderful shrewdness too, seeks his father. May the gods grant that he find the man himself, as he has already found with whom he had been! Farewell.

26.1. I rejoice and congratulate you, that you have betrothed your daughter to Fuscus Salinator. A patrician house, a most honourable father, a mother of equal repute; he himself studious, lettered, even eloquent — in his boyhood frank and courteous, in his youth grave as an old man. For I am not deceived by affection.

26.2. I love him indeed unreservedly — so has he deserved by his attentions, so by his respect — yet I judge too, and that the more keenly the more I love; and to you I pledge, as one who has tested him, that you will have a son-in-law than whom a better could not be fashioned even in a wish.

26.3. It remains that he make you as soon as possible the grandfather of children like himself. How happy that time, when it shall be granted me to take from your bosom his children, your grandchildren, as my own children or grandchildren, and to hold them as it were by an equal right! Farewell.

27.1. You ask that I consider what, as consul designate, you should propose in honour of the prince. The finding is easy, the choosing not easy; for there is ample material from his virtues. Yet I will write — or rather, which I prefer, will tell you face to face — if first I have shown you my hesitation.

27.2. I doubt whether I ought to advise you the same that I did myself. As consul designate, I abstained from all this — if not flattery, yet the appearance of flattery — not as though free and steadfast, but as understanding our prince, whose chief praise I saw to be this, if I decreed nothing as if from necessity.

27.3. I recalled, too, that very many honours had been conferred on every worst man, from whom this best one could be distinguished by nothing more than by a difference in proposing; which very thing I did not pass over by dissimulation and silence, lest perhaps it should seem not my deliberate judgement but forgetfulness.

27.4. This I did then; but the same things do not please all, nor even suit all. Besides, the reason for doing something or not doing it changes with the condition both of the men themselves and of circumstances and times.

27.5. For the recent works of our greatest prince afford the means of proposing things new, great, and true. For which reasons, as I wrote above, I doubt whether I should now advise you the same that then I advised myself. Of this I do not doubt: that I ought to set, as part of your deliberation, what I myself had done. Farewell.

28.1. I know what cause was a hindrance to you, that you could not outstrip my arrival in Campania. But, though absent, you have wholly migrated hither: so great a store, both of city and of country things, has been offered me in your name, all of which, shamelessly, I have nonetheless accepted.

28.2. For your people asked me to do so, and I feared you would be angry both with me and with them, if I had not. In future, unless you all use moderation, I will use it; and I have already given notice to your people that, if they bring so many things again, they will carry all back.

28.3. You will say that I ought to use your things as my own. Granted; but I spare them just as I spare my own. Farewell.

29.1. Avidius Quietus, who loved me singularly and — at which I rejoice no less — approved of me, used often to relate, among many other sayings of Thrasea — for he was his intimate — this one: that he was wont to advise that those causes should be undertaken which were either of friends, or destitute of advocates, or pertaining to a precedent.

29.2. Why those of friends, needs no interpretation. Why those destitute? Because in them above all both the firmness and the humanity of the pleader were seen. Why those pertaining to a precedent? Because it mattered most whether a good or a bad example were introduced.

29.3. To these kinds of causes I will add — ambitiously, perhaps, yet I will add them — the famous and illustrious. For it is fair to plead sometimes for glory and fame, that is, one's own cause. These limits, since you have consulted me, I set for your dignity and modesty.

29.4. Nor does it escape me that practice both is and is held the best teacher of speaking; I see, too, many men of small talent and no letters, who have attained to pleading well by pleading.

29.5. But also that saying, which I have received as Pollio's, or as if Pollio's, I find most true: "By pleading well it came about that I pleaded often, by pleading often that I pleaded less well" — because, of course, by too much assiduity, glibness rather than capacity, and not confidence but rashness, is acquired.

29.6. Nor indeed did it hinder Isocrates from being held a supreme orator, that by weakness of voice and timidity of brow he was prevented from speaking in public. So read much, write, meditate, that you may be able to speak when you wish: you will speak when you must wish.

29.7. This middle course I myself have generally observed; sometimes I have obeyed necessity, which is part of reason. For I have pleaded certain causes by order of the Senate, which yet were, by that division of Thrasea, of the kind pertaining to a precedent.

29.8. I appeared for the Baetici against Baebius Massa: it was asked whether an inquiry should be granted; it was granted. I appeared again for the same men, complaining of Caecilius Classicus: it was asked whether the provincials should be punished as the allies and ministers of the proconsul; they paid the penalty.

29.9. I accused Marius Priscus, who, condemned under the law of extortion, was profiting by the clemency of the law, whose severity he had exceeded by the enormity of his crimes; he was banished.

29.10. I defended Julius Bassus, a man too little guarded and incautious, but by no means bad; judges being granted, he remained in the Senate.

29.11. I pleaded lately for Varenus, who requested that he too be allowed in turn to summon witnesses; it was granted. For the future I wish that I may be ordered above all to do those things which it would befit me to have done even of my own accord. Farewell.

30.1. We ought, by Hercules, to celebrate your birthdays just as we do our own, since the gladness of ours depends upon yours, by whose diligence and care we are cheerful here and carefree there.

30.2. The Camillian villa, which you possess in Campania, is indeed worn by age; and yet, what are the more precious parts, either remain whole or are very slightly damaged.

30.3. We are taking heed, then, that they be repaired as soundly as possible. I seem to have many friends, but of this kind, which both you seek and the matter requires, almost none.

30.4. For they are all of the toga and of the city; but the management of country estates requires some hard and rustic man, to whom neither that labour seems heavy, nor the care sordid, nor the solitude sad.

30.5. You think most honourably of Rufus; for he was an intimate of your son. What, however, he can render us there, I do not know; that he is most willing, I believe. Farewell.

31.1. Summoned into council by our Caesar to Centum Cellae — for this is the name of the place — I took great pleasure.

31.2. For what is more agreeable than to observe the prince's justice, gravity, and courtesy, in his retirement too, where they are most laid open? There were various inquiries, such as might test the judge's virtues through several aspects.

31.3. Claudius Aristion, a leading man of the Ephesians, pleaded his cause — a munificent man and innocently popular; hence envy, and an informer set on by men most unlike him; and so he was acquitted and vindicated.

31.4. On the following day Gallitta was heard, charged with adultery. Married to a military tribune about to seek office, she had stained both her own and her husband's dignity by love of a centurion. The husband had written to the consular legate, the legate to Caesar.

31.5. Caesar, having sifted the proofs, cashiered the centurion and even banished him. There remained, to the crime, which could not be of one alone, the other part of the vengeance; but the husband, not without some reproach for his patience, was held back by love of his wife, whom indeed even after the adultery was reported he had kept at home, as if content to have removed his rival.

31.6. Admonished to carry through the accusation, he carried it through unwillingly. But it was necessary that she be condemned even against the will of her accuser: she was condemned and left to the penalties of the Julian law. Caesar added to the sentence both the name of the centurion and a mention of military discipline, lest he should seem to recall all cases of that kind to himself.

31.7. On the third day was brought in an inquiry tossed about by much talk and varied rumour: the codicil of Julius Tiro, which it was agreed was in part genuine, in part said to be forged.

31.8. As guilty of the crime were named Sempronius Senecio, a Roman knight, and Eurythmus, Caesar's freedman and procurator. The heirs, while Caesar was in Dacia, had jointly written a letter asking that he take up the inquiry.

31.9. He had taken it up; on his return he had appointed a day, and when some of the heirs were dropping the accusation as if out of respect for Eurythmus, he had said most admirably: "He is not Polyclitus, nor am I Nero." Yet he had granted the petitioners a delay, the time of which being now elapsed, he had sat down to hear.

31.10. On the part of the heirs only two came in; they demanded that either all the heirs be compelled to plead, since all had laid the charge, or that to them too leave be given to desist.

31.11. Caesar spoke with the utmost gravity, the utmost moderation; and when the advocate of Senecio and Eurythmus had said that the accused were being left under suspicions unless they were heard, he said: "I do not care whether these men are left under suspicions; I am left under them."

31.12. Then, turning to us: "Consider what we ought to do; for these men wish to complain that it has been permitted them not to accuse." Then, by the council's verdict, he ordered notice given to all the heirs, that either they plead or each one prove his reasons for not pleading; otherwise he would pronounce even on a charge of false accusation.

31.13. You see how honourable, how severe, were the days; which most pleasant relaxations followed. We were invited daily to dinner; it was modest, if you considered him a prince. Sometimes we heard entertainments, sometimes the night was drawn out in most pleasant conversations.

31.14. On the last day, as we were departing — so attentive is the courtesy in Caesar — parting-gifts were sent us. But to me, as the gravity of the inquiries, the honour of the council, the sweetness and frankness of the company, so the place itself was most delightful.

31.15. A most beautiful villa is girdled by greenest fields, and overlooks the shore, in whose bay a harbour is at this very moment being made. The left arm of this is fortified with most solid work; the right is being laboured at.

31.16. In the mouth of the harbour an island rises, which may break the sea, driven in by the wind, that lies before it, and afford a safe passage to ships on either side. It rises, moreover, by an art worth seeing: a very broad vessel brings up huge rocks against it; these, cast down one upon another, hold by their own weight, and are gradually built up into a kind of mound, as it were.

31.17. Already a rocky ridge stands out and shows itself, and dashes the waves driven against it to an immense height and flings them up; there is a vast roar, and the sea is white all around. Then to the rocks piers will be added, which in time to come may imitate an island grown up of itself. This harbour will have, and already has, the name of its founder, and will be most salutary; for along a very long stretch of harbourless coast it will serve as a refuge. Farewell.

32.1. Although you yourself are most temperate, and have brought up your daughter as became your daughter, the granddaughter of Tutilius, yet, since she is about to marry a most honourable man, Nonius Celer, on whom the conduct of public office imposes a certain necessity of splendour, she ought, according to her husband's condition, to use dress and an attendance by which dignity is not indeed increased, yet is adorned and equipped.

32.2. You, moreover, I know to be most blessed in mind, but modest in means. And so I claim part of your burden for myself, and, as a second parent of our girl, I contribute fifty thousand sesterces — meaning to contribute more, did I not trust that it could be obtained from your modesty by the very smallness of the little gift, that you would not refuse it. Farewell.

33.1. "Take away all things," he says, "and put away the labours you have begun!" Whether you are writing or reading something, bid it be taken away, put away, and receive my speech, like those divine arms — could I have been more arrogant? — in truth, as a beautiful one among mine; for it is enough for me to compete with myself.

33.2. This is the speech for Attia Viriola, distinguished both by the rank of the person, by the rarity of the precedent, and by the greatness of the trial. For a woman of splendid birth, married to a man of praetorian rank, disinherited by her octogenarian father within eleven days after he, captured by love, had brought home a stepmother for her, was reclaiming her paternal property in a fourfold trial.

33.3. There sat a hundred and eighty judges — for so many are gathered for the four panels — a great body of advocates on either side and crowded benches; besides, a dense ring of bystanders encircled the very broad court in a manifold circle.

33.4. In addition, the tribunal was thronged, and even from the upper part of the basilica both women and men leaned over, in eagerness both to hear — which was hard — and — which was easy — to see. Great was the expectation of the fathers, great of the daughters, great even of the stepmothers.

33.5. A varied outcome followed; for in two panels we won, in as many we were defeated. Notable indeed and marvellous, in the same case, with the same judges, the same advocates, at the same time, so great a diversity.

33.6. It happened by chance, what might not seem chance: the stepmother was defeated, herself heir to a sixth part; defeated was Suburanus, who, disinherited by his own father, was claiming with singular impudence the property of another's father, not daring to seek his own.

33.7. These things I have set out to you, first that you might know from a letter what you could not from the speech, then — for I will lay bare my arts — that you might read the speech the more gladly, if you seemed not to be reading it but to be present at the trial; which, however great it be, I do not despair of obtaining for it the favour due to the very briefest.

33.8. For it is renewed both by abundance of matter and by acute division and by several little narratives and by variety of expression. There are many things — I should not dare to say it save to you — elevated, many combative, many subtle.

33.9. For there intervened, amid those keen and lofty passages, a frequent necessity of reckoning and almost of calling for counters and a table, so that suddenly the trial before the Court of the Hundred was turned into the form of a private suit.

33.10. We gave the sails to indignation, we gave them to anger, we gave them to grief, and in a most ample cause we were borne, as on a great sea, by many winds.

33.11. In short, certain of my companions are wont to esteem this speech — I will say it again — to be, among mine, my "On the Crown"; whether truly, you will most easily judge, who hold all of them so faithfully in memory that you can compare them with this while you read this one alone. Farewell.

34.1. You did rightly in promising a gladiatorial show to our people of Verona, by whom you have long been loved, respected, honoured. From them too you had a wife most dear to you and most approved, to whose memory either some work or some spectacle, and this above all, which most befits a funeral, was owed.

34.2. Besides, you were asked with so great a consensus that to refuse would have seemed not steadfast but harsh. This also was admirable, that you were so ready, so liberal in giving it; for through these things too a great spirit is shown.

34.3. I could wish that the African beasts, of which you had bought very many, had arrived by the appointed day; but although they were delayed, detained by weather, you nevertheless deserved that it should be credited to you, since it was not through you that you did not exhibit them. Farewell.