Letter 6010: When I visited the country house of my mother-in-law at Alsium, which at one time belonged to Rufus Verginius, the...
Pliny the Younger→Albinus, Abbot of Canterbury|c. 104 AD|Pliny the Younger
friendshipgrief deathillness
To Albinus.
When I visited the country house of my mother-in-law at Alsium, which at one time belonged to Rufus Verginius, the place revived painful memories of the loss I suffered in the death of that excellent and noble man. * For it was here that he sought retirement, and he even used to speak of it as the nest of his old age. Whichever way I turned, my spirit sought his presence, my eyes looked to find him. It even gave me pleasure to see his monument, though I was sorry I had seen it, for it is still unfinished, not because of any difficulty in executing the work, which is on a very modest, and I might say meagre scale, but because of the negligence of the person to whom it was entrusted. I felt grieved and indignant that ten years should have elapsed since his death, and that his remains and neglected ashes should still be lying without an inscription and a name, though his memory and fame have traversed the whole world. Moreover, he had particularly left instructions that his glorious and immortal behaviour should be inscribed in the verses : "Here lies Rufus, who once overthrew Vindex, and bestowed the imperial power not upon himself but upon his country." Loyalty in friendship is so rare, and the dead are so speedily forgotten, that we ought even to raise our own monuments, and execute, before we die, the duties that should properly be carried out by our heirs. For who is there who need not fear that what we see has happened to Verginius may also happen to himself? The very fact that Verginius was so famous makes the indignity he has suffered the more shocking and the more conspicuous. Farewell.
[Note: See letter ii. 1.]
L To Albinus.
When I visited the country house of my mother-in-law at Alsium, which at one time belonged to Rufus Verginius, the place revived painful memories of the loss I suffered in the death of that excellent and noble man. * For it was here that he sought retirement, and he even used to speak of it as the nest of his old age. Whichever way I turned, my spirit sought his presence, my eyes looked to find him. It even gave me pleasure to see his monument, though I was sorry I had seen it, for it is still unfinished, not because of any difficulty in executing the work, which is on a very modest, and I might say meagre scale, but because of the negligence of the person to whom it was entrusted. I felt grieved and indignant that ten years should have elapsed since his death, and that his remains and neglected ashes should still be lying without an inscription and a name, though his memory and fame have traversed the whole world. Moreover, he had particularly left instructions that his glorious and immortal behaviour should be inscribed in the verses : "Here lies Rufus, who once overthrew Vindex, and bestowed the imperial power not upon himself but upon his country." Loyalty in friendship is so rare, and the dead are so speedily forgotten, that we ought even to raise our own monuments, and execute, before we die, the duties that should properly be carried out by our heirs. For who is there who need not fear that what we see has happened to Verginius may also happen to himself? The very fact that Verginius was so famous makes the indignity he has suffered the more shocking and the more conspicuous. Farewell.
(*) See letter ii. 1.
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To Albinus.
When I visited the country house of my mother-in-law at Alsium, which at one time belonged to Rufus Verginius, the place revived painful memories of the loss I suffered in the death of that excellent and noble man. * For it was here that he sought retirement, and he even used to speak of it as the nest of his old age. Whichever way I turned, my spirit sought his presence, my eyes looked to find him. It even gave me pleasure to see his monument, though I was sorry I had seen it, for it is still unfinished, not because of any difficulty in executing the work, which is on a very modest, and I might say meagre scale, but because of the negligence of the person to whom it was entrusted. I felt grieved and indignant that ten years should have elapsed since his death, and that his remains and neglected ashes should still be lying without an inscription and a name, though his memory and fame have traversed the whole world. Moreover, he had particularly left instructions that his glorious and immortal behaviour should be inscribed in the verses : "Here lies Rufus, who once overthrew Vindex, and bestowed the imperial power not upon himself but upon his country." Loyalty in friendship is so rare, and the dead are so speedily forgotten, that we ought even to raise our own monuments, and execute, before we die, the duties that should properly be carried out by our heirs. For who is there who need not fear that what we see has happened to Verginius may also happen to himself? The very fact that Verginius was so famous makes the indignity he has suffered the more shocking and the more conspicuous. Farewell.
[Note: See letter ii. 1.]
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.