Letter 10039: The theatre at Nicaea, Sir, the greater part of which has already been constructed, though it is still incomplete,...
Pliny the Younger→Trajan|c. 112 AD|Pliny the Younger
education booksimperial politics
To Trajan.
The theatre at Nicaea, Sir, the greater part of which has already been constructed, though it is still incomplete, has already cost more than ten million sesterces, - so at least I am told, for the accounts have not been made out, - and I am afraid the money has been thrown away. For the building has sunk, and there are great gaping crevices to be seen, either because the ground is soft and damp, or owing to the brittleness and crumbling character of the stone, and so it is worth consideration whether it should be finished or abandoned, or even pulled down. For the props and buttresses by which it is shored up seem to me to be more costly than strength-giving. Many parts of this theatre were promised by private persons, as for example the galleries and porticos above the pit, but all these are postponed now that the work, which had to be finished first, has come to a stop. The same people of Nicaea began, before my arrival here, to restore the public gymnasium, which had been destroyed by fire, on a more extensive and wider scale than the old building, and they have already disbursed a considerable sum thereon, and I fear to very little purpose, for the structure is not well put together, and looks disjointed. Moreover, the architect - though it is true he is the rival of the man who began the work - declares that the walls, in spite of their being twenty-two feet thick, cannot bear the weight placed upon them, because they have not been put together with cement in the middle, and have not been strengthened with brickwork. The people of Claudiopolis, again, are excavating rather than constructing an immense public bath in a low-lying situation with a mountain hanging over it, and they are using for the purpose the sums which the senators, who were added to the local council by your kindness, have either paid as their entrance fee, * or are paying according as I ask them for it. Consequently, as I am afraid that the public money at Nicaea may be unprofitably spent, and that - what is more precious than any money - your kindness at Claudiopolis may be turned to unprofitable account, I beg you not only for the sake of the theatre, but also for these baths, to send an architect to see which is the better course to adopt, either, after the money which has already been expended, to finish by hook or by crook the works as they have been begun, or to repair them where they seem to require it, or if necessary change the sites entirely, lest in our anxiety to save the money already disbursed we should lay out the remaining sums with just as poor results.
[Note: In Bithynia those elected to the local senates paid no entrance fee, but those admitted on the Emperor's nomination paid either one or two thousand denarii, according to circumstances; see letter 112 of this book.]
L To Trajan.
The theatre at Nicaea, Sir, the greater part of which has already been constructed, though it is still incomplete, has already cost more than ten million sesterces, - so at least I am told, for the accounts have not been made out, - and I am afraid the money has been thrown away. For the building has sunk, and there are great gaping crevices to be seen, either because the ground is soft and damp, or owing to the brittleness and crumbling character of the stone, and so it is worth consideration whether it should be finished or abandoned, or even pulled down. For the props and buttresses by which it is shored up seem to me to be more costly than strength-giving. Many parts of this theatre were promised by private persons, as for example the galleries and porticos above the pit, but all these are postponed now that the work, which had to be finished first, has come to a stop. The same people of Nicaea began, before my arrival here, to restore the public gymnasium, which had been destroyed by fire, on a more extensive and wider scale than the old building, and they have already disbursed a considerable sum thereon, and I fear to very little purpose, for the structure is not well put together, and looks disjointed. Moreover, the architect - though it is true he is the rival of the man who began the work - declares that the walls, in spite of their being twenty-two feet thick, cannot bear the weight placed upon them, because they have not been put together with cement in the middle, and have not been strengthened with brickwork. The people of Claudiopolis, again, are excavating rather than constructing an immense public bath in a low-lying situation with a mountain hanging over it, and they are using for the purpose the sums which the senators, who were added to the local council by your kindness, have either paid as their entrance fee, * or are paying according as I ask them for it. Consequently, as I am afraid that the public money at Nicaea may be unprofitably spent, and that - what is more precious than any money - your kindness at Claudiopolis may be turned to unprofitable account, I beg you not only for the sake of the theatre, but also for these baths, to send an architect to see which is the better course to adopt, either, after the money which has already been expended, to finish by hook or by crook the works as they have been begun, or to repair them where they seem to require it, or if necessary change the sites entirely, lest in our anxiety to save the money already disbursed we should lay out the remaining sums with just as poor results.
(*) In Bithynia those elected to the local senates paid no entrance fee, but those admitted on the Emperor's nomination paid either one or two thousand denarii, according to circumstances; see letter 112 of this book.
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To Trajan.
The theatre at Nicaea, Sir, the greater part of which has already been constructed, though it is still incomplete, has already cost more than ten million sesterces, - so at least I am told, for the accounts have not been made out, - and I am afraid the money has been thrown away. For the building has sunk, and there are great gaping crevices to be seen, either because the ground is soft and damp, or owing to the brittleness and crumbling character of the stone, and so it is worth consideration whether it should be finished or abandoned, or even pulled down. For the props and buttresses by which it is shored up seem to me to be more costly than strength-giving. Many parts of this theatre were promised by private persons, as for example the galleries and porticos above the pit, but all these are postponed now that the work, which had to be finished first, has come to a stop. The same people of Nicaea began, before my arrival here, to restore the public gymnasium, which had been destroyed by fire, on a more extensive and wider scale than the old building, and they have already disbursed a considerable sum thereon, and I fear to very little purpose, for the structure is not well put together, and looks disjointed. Moreover, the architect - though it is true he is the rival of the man who began the work - declares that the walls, in spite of their being twenty-two feet thick, cannot bear the weight placed upon them, because they have not been put together with cement in the middle, and have not been strengthened with brickwork. The people of Claudiopolis, again, are excavating rather than constructing an immense public bath in a low-lying situation with a mountain hanging over it, and they are using for the purpose the sums which the senators, who were added to the local council by your kindness, have either paid as their entrance fee, * or are paying according as I ask them for it. Consequently, as I am afraid that the public money at Nicaea may be unprofitably spent, and that - what is more precious than any money - your kindness at Claudiopolis may be turned to unprofitable account, I beg you not only for the sake of the theatre, but also for these baths, to send an architect to see which is the better course to adopt, either, after the money which has already been expended, to finish by hook or by crook the works as they have been begun, or to repair them where they seem to require it, or if necessary change the sites entirely, lest in our anxiety to save the money already disbursed we should lay out the remaining sums with just as poor results.
[Note: In Bithynia those elected to the local senates paid no entrance fee, but those admitted on the Emperor's nomination paid either one or two thousand denarii, according to circumstances; see letter 112 of this book.]
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.