Letter 10011: My recent illness, Sir, laid me under great obligations to Postumius Marinus, my doctor, and I will only be able to...

Pliny the YoungerTrajan|c. 112 AD|Pliny the Younger
women

To Trajan.

My recent illness, Sir, laid me under great obligations to Postumius Marinus, my doctor, and I will only be able to fully repay him if you are kind enough to grant, with your usual goodness of heart, the request I have to make. I beg you, therefore, to give the citizenship to his relations, to Chrysippus the son of Mithridates, and to the wife of Chrysippus, Stratonica the daughter of Epigonus, and also to the children of the same Chrysippus, Epigonus and Mithridates, with the proviso that they may be placed under the authority of their father, and may preserve their rights as patrons towards their freedmen. I also beg you to bestow full Roman citizenship upon Lucius Satrius Abascantus, Publius Caesius Phosporus, and Pancharia Soteris, whose patrons are quite willing for them to receive the favour.

Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.

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