Letter 4008: You congratulate me on accepting the office of augur.
Pliny the Younger→Maturus Arrianus|c. 104 AD|Pliny the Younger
imperial politics
To Maturus Arrianus.
You congratulate me on accepting the office of augur. You are right in so doing, first, because it is a proper thing to obey the wishes of an emperor with a character like ours, and, secondly, because the priestly office is in itself an ancient and sacred one, and inspires respect and dignity from the very fact that it is held for life. For other offices, though almost equal in point of dignity to this, may be bestowed one day and taken away the next, while with the augurship the element of chance only enters into the bestowal of it. I think too that I have special reasons for congratulating myself in that I have succeeded Julius Frontinus, one of the leading men of his day, who for many years running used to bring forward my name, whenever the nomination day for the priesthoods came round, as though he wished to co-opt me to fill his place. Now events have turned out in such a way that my election does not seem to have been the work of chance. You, however, as you write, are chiefly delighted at my being augur because M. Tullius * was one. You rejoice, that is, at my stepping into the honours of one whom I long to emulate in my intellectual pursuits. I can only hope that as I have attained to the priesthood and the consulship at a much earlier age than he did, I may, when I am old, at least in some degree acquire his serenity of mind. But all that man can give has fallen to my lot and to many another; the other thing, which can only be bestowed by the gods, is as difficult to attain to as it is presumptuous to hope for it. Farewell.
[Note: Cicero. This sentence was, perhaps unintentionally, omitted from Firth's translation.]
L To Maturus Arrianus.
You congratulate me on accepting the office of augur. You are right in so doing, first, because it is a proper thing to obey the wishes of an emperor with a character like ours, and, secondly, because the priestly office is in itself an ancient and sacred one, and inspires respect and dignity from the very fact that it is held for life. For other offices, though almost equal in point of dignity to this, may be bestowed one day and taken away the next, while with the augurship the element of chance only enters into the bestowal of it. I think too that I have special reasons for congratulating myself in that I have succeeded Julius Frontinus, one of the leading men of his day, who for many years running used to bring forward my name, whenever the nomination day for the priesthoods came round, as though he wished to co-opt me to fill his place. Now events have turned out in such a way that my election does not seem to have been the work of chance. You, however, as you write, are chiefly delighted at my being augur because M. Tullius * was one. You rejoice, that is, at my stepping into the honours of one whom I long to emulate in my intellectual pursuits. I can only hope that as I have attained to the priesthood and the consulship at a much earlier age than he did, I may, when I am old, at least in some degree acquire his serenity of mind. But all that man can give has fallen to my lot and to many another; the other thing, which can only be bestowed by the gods, is as difficult to attain to as it is presumptuous to hope for it. Farewell.
(*) Cicero. This sentence was, perhaps unintentionally, omitted from Firth's translation.
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To Maturus Arrianus.
You congratulate me on accepting the office of augur. You are right in so doing, first, because it is a proper thing to obey the wishes of an emperor with a character like ours, and, secondly, because the priestly office is in itself an ancient and sacred one, and inspires respect and dignity from the very fact that it is held for life. For other offices, though almost equal in point of dignity to this, may be bestowed one day and taken away the next, while with the augurship the element of chance only enters into the bestowal of it. I think too that I have special reasons for congratulating myself in that I have succeeded Julius Frontinus, one of the leading men of his day, who for many years running used to bring forward my name, whenever the nomination day for the priesthoods came round, as though he wished to co-opt me to fill his place. Now events have turned out in such a way that my election does not seem to have been the work of chance. You, however, as you write, are chiefly delighted at my being augur because M. Tullius * was one. You rejoice, that is, at my stepping into the honours of one whom I long to emulate in my intellectual pursuits. I can only hope that as I have attained to the priesthood and the consulship at a much earlier age than he did, I may, when I am old, at least in some degree acquire his serenity of mind. But all that man can give has fallen to my lot and to many another; the other thing, which can only be bestowed by the gods, is as difficult to attain to as it is presumptuous to hope for it. Farewell.
[Note: Cicero. This sentence was, perhaps unintentionally, omitted from Firth's translation.]
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.