Letter 4024: Just recently, after pleading before the centumviri in the fourfold Court, * I happened to remember that in my...
Pliny the Younger→Fabius Justus|c. 104 AD|Pliny the Younger
friendshipimperial politics
To Fabius Valens.
Just recently, after pleading before the centumviri in the fourfold Court, * I happened to remember that in my younger days I had also pleaded in the same court. My thoughts, as usual, began to take a wider range, and I commenced to recall to my memory those whom I had worked with in this court and in that. I found I was the only one left who had practised in both, so sweeping were the changes effected by the slenderness of human life and the fickleness of fortune. Some of those who used to plead in my young days are dead, others are in exile; age and ill health have convinced others that their speaking days are over; some are enjoying of their own free will the pleasures of retirement, or are in command of armies, or have been withdrawn from civil employments by becoming the personal friends of the Emperor. Even in my own case how many changes I have gone through! I first owed my promotion to my literary studies; then they brought me into danger, and then again won me still further advancement. My friendships with worthy citizens likewise first helped me, then stood in my way, ** and now again they assist me. If you count the years, the time seems but short; but count the changes and the ups and downs, and it seems an age. This may be taken by us as a lesson never to despair of anything, and never to impose a blind trust in anything, when we see so many vicissitudes brought about by this inconstant world of ours. I deem it a mark of friendship on my part to make you the confidant of my thoughts, and to admonish you by the precepts and examples with which I admonish myself. That is the whole purpose of this letter. Farewell.
[Note: See letter i. 18.
]
[Note: In the time of Domitian, the favour and approval of the best citizens made him an object of suspicion to the tyrant.]
L To Fabius Valens.
Just recently, after pleading before the centumviri in the fourfold Court, * I happened to remember that in my younger days I had also pleaded in the same court. My thoughts, as usual, began to take a wider range, and I commenced to recall to my memory those whom I had worked with in this court and in that. I found I was the only one left who had practised in both, so sweeping were the changes effected by the slenderness of human life and the fickleness of fortune. Some of those who used to plead in my young days are dead, others are in exile; age and ill health have convinced others that their speaking days are over; some are enjoying of their own free will the pleasures of retirement, or are in command of armies, or have been withdrawn from civil employments by becoming the personal friends of the Emperor. Even in my own case how many changes I have gone through! I first owed my promotion to my literary studies; then they brought me into danger, and then again won me still further advancement. My friendships with worthy citizens likewise first helped me, then stood in my way, ** and now again they assist me. If you count the years, the time seems but short; but count the changes and the ups and downs, and it seems an age. This may be taken by us as a lesson never to despair of anything, and never to impose a blind trust in anything, when we see so many vicissitudes brought about by this inconstant world of ours. I deem it a mark of friendship on my part to make you the confidant of my thoughts, and to admonish you by the precepts and examples with which I admonish myself. That is the whole purpose of this letter. Farewell.
(*) See letter i. 18.
(**) In the time of Domitian, the favour and approval of the best citizens made him an object of suspicion to the tyrant.
◆
To Fabius Valens.
Just recently, after pleading before the centumviri in the fourfold Court, * I happened to remember that in my younger days I had also pleaded in the same court. My thoughts, as usual, began to take a wider range, and I commenced to recall to my memory those whom I had worked with in this court and in that. I found I was the only one left who had practised in both, so sweeping were the changes effected by the slenderness of human life and the fickleness of fortune. Some of those who used to plead in my young days are dead, others are in exile; age and ill health have convinced others that their speaking days are over; some are enjoying of their own free will the pleasures of retirement, or are in command of armies, or have been withdrawn from civil employments by becoming the personal friends of the Emperor. Even in my own case how many changes I have gone through! I first owed my promotion to my literary studies; then they brought me into danger, and then again won me still further advancement. My friendships with worthy citizens likewise first helped me, then stood in my way, ** and now again they assist me. If you count the years, the time seems but short; but count the changes and the ups and downs, and it seems an age. This may be taken by us as a lesson never to despair of anything, and never to impose a blind trust in anything, when we see so many vicissitudes brought about by this inconstant world of ours. I deem it a mark of friendship on my part to make you the confidant of my thoughts, and to admonish you by the precepts and examples with which I admonish myself. That is the whole purpose of this letter. Farewell.
[Note: See letter i. 18.
]
[Note: In the time of Domitian, the favour and approval of the best citizens made him an object of suspicion to the tyrant.]
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.