Letter 6005: I have already told you * that Varenus was given permission to bring witnesses on his behalf from his province.
Pliny the Younger→Cornelius Ursus|c. 104 AD|Pliny the Younger
education booksimperial politics
To Ursus.
I have already told you * that Varenus was given permission to bring witnesses on his behalf from his province. This seemed just to a majority of the senate, but unjust to certain others, and the latter clung obstinately to their view, especially Licinius Nepos, who at the next meeting of the senate, on a debate dealing with a totally different subject, began to discuss the resolution of the previous sitting, and re-opened a matter which was already closed. He even went on to say that the consuls should be asked to bring in a motion relating to the law against extortion, under the head of the law against bribery, and say whether they thought it right that an addition should be made to the law, giving those who were accused of the offence the same powers to make inquiries and denounce the guilty parties as were granted to the accusers and to the witnesses. Many considered that this speech of Nepos was belated, untimely, and quite out of place, since he had allowed the proper time for opposing the proposal to pass by, and now declaimed against it after it had been carried, though he might have done so before. The praetor Juventius Celsus vehemently upbraided him in a long speech, in which he taunted him with seeking to reform the senate. Nepos replied; Celsus answered him back, and neither spared reproaches and insults. I do not wish to repeat the words which pained me when I heard them spoken, but I blame even more some of our number who kept running first to Celsus and then to Nepos, according as one or other was speaking, in their desire to hear every word. At one moment they seemed to be encouraging and inflaming their passions, at another to be seeking to reconcile them and smooth matters over, and then they kept on appealing to Caesar to take the side of each, or even of both, just as actors do in a farce. What annoyed me most of all was that each was told what his opponent was going to say, for Celsus replied to Nepos from his note-book, and Nepos answered Celsus from his tablets. The friends of each kept talking to such an extent that the two disputants knew exactly what each was going to say, as though it had all been arranged beforehand. Farewell.
[Note: See letter v. 20.]
L To Ursus.
I have already told you * that Varenus was given permission to bring witnesses on his behalf from his province. This seemed just to a majority of the senate, but unjust to certain others, and the latter clung obstinately to their view, especially Licinius Nepos, who at the next meeting of the senate, on a debate dealing with a totally different subject, began to discuss the resolution of the previous sitting, and re-opened a matter which was already closed. He even went on to say that the consuls should be asked to bring in a motion relating to the law against extortion, under the head of the law against bribery, and say whether they thought it right that an addition should be made to the law, giving those who were accused of the offence the same powers to make inquiries and denounce the guilty parties as were granted to the accusers and to the witnesses. Many considered that this speech of Nepos was belated, untimely, and quite out of place, inasmuch as he had allowed the proper time for opposing the proposal to pass by, and now declaimed against it after it had been carried, though he might have done so before. The praetor Juventius Celsus vehemently upbraided him in a long speech, in which he taunted him with seeking to reform the senate. Nepos replied; Celsus answered him back, and neither spared reproaches and insults. I do not wish to repeat the words which pained me when I heard them spoken, but I blame even more some of our number who kept running first to Celsus and then to Nepos, according as one or other was speaking, in their desire to hear every word. At one moment they seemed to be encouraging and inflaming their passions, at another to be seeking to reconcile them and smooth matters over, and then they kept on appealing to Caesar to take the side of each, or even of both, just as actors do in a farce. What annoyed me most of all was that each was told what his opponent was going to say, for Celsus replied to Nepos from his note-book, and Nepos answered Celsus from his tablets. The friends of each kept talking to such an extent that the two disputants knew exactly what each was going to say, as though it had all been arranged beforehand. Farewell.
(*) See letter v. 20.
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To Ursus.
I have already told you * that Varenus was given permission to bring witnesses on his behalf from his province. This seemed just to a majority of the senate, but unjust to certain others, and the latter clung obstinately to their view, especially Licinius Nepos, who at the next meeting of the senate, on a debate dealing with a totally different subject, began to discuss the resolution of the previous sitting, and re-opened a matter which was already closed. He even went on to say that the consuls should be asked to bring in a motion relating to the law against extortion, under the head of the law against bribery, and say whether they thought it right that an addition should be made to the law, giving those who were accused of the offence the same powers to make inquiries and denounce the guilty parties as were granted to the accusers and to the witnesses. Many considered that this speech of Nepos was belated, untimely, and quite out of place, since he had allowed the proper time for opposing the proposal to pass by, and now declaimed against it after it had been carried, though he might have done so before. The praetor Juventius Celsus vehemently upbraided him in a long speech, in which he taunted him with seeking to reform the senate. Nepos replied; Celsus answered him back, and neither spared reproaches and insults. I do not wish to repeat the words which pained me when I heard them spoken, but I blame even more some of our number who kept running first to Celsus and then to Nepos, according as one or other was speaking, in their desire to hear every word. At one moment they seemed to be encouraging and inflaming their passions, at another to be seeking to reconcile them and smooth matters over, and then they kept on appealing to Caesar to take the side of each, or even of both, just as actors do in a farce. What annoyed me most of all was that each was told what his opponent was going to say, for Celsus replied to Nepos from his note-book, and Nepos answered Celsus from his tablets. The friends of each kept talking to such an extent that the two disputants knew exactly what each was going to say, as though it had all been arranged beforehand. Farewell.
[Note: See letter v. 20.]
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.