Letter 8012: I really must for once take a holiday to-day, as Titinius Capito is giving a reading, and I hardly know whether my...
Pliny the Younger→Cornelius Minicianus|c. 107 AD|Pliny the Younger
friendshipgrief death
To Minicianus.
I really must for once take a holiday to-day, as Titinius Capito is giving a reading, and I hardly know whether my obligation or my desire to go and hear him is the greater. He is an excellent person, quite one of the chief ornaments of our time; he is devoted to literature, and he loves literary people, giving them assistance and a helping hand whenever he can. He is a regular harbour of refuge and patron to crowds of scribblers, all of whom look up to his guidance; and it was he who restored and gave new life to the arts and sciences when they were in rapid decline. He lends his house for recitals; he is wonderfully kind in attending readings which are held elsewhere than at his house; and he certainly never failed to put in an appearance at one of my recitals, so long as he happened to be in Rome at the time. It would be all the more disgraceful for me not to return the compliment, as I have the more honourable reasons for so doing. If I were busy in the courts, should I not consider myself obliged to a friend who appeared at the appointed time to save my bail? And so now, when I am given up heart and soul to my studies, are my obligations the less to a person who so regularly pays me the compliment of his presence, I won't say in the only matter in which he can oblige me, but certainly in the matter which obliges me most? But even if I owed him no return, no reciprocity, so to speak, of kindness, I should yet be anxious for the success of a man gifted with such charming and splendid genius, whose style, though essentially severe, is yet rendered most attractive by the dignity of his theme. He is writing an account of the deaths of distinguished men, certain of whom were very dear friends of mine. So I seem to myself to be performing a pious duty, for though I could not be present at their obsequies, yet I can attend, so to speak, at their funeral eulogies, which are all the more likely to bear the stamp of truth from the fact that they have been so long delayed. Farewell.
L To Minicianus.
I really must for once take a holiday to-day, as Titinius Capito is giving a reading, and I hardly know whether my obligation or my desire to go and hear him is the greater. He is an excellent person, quite one of the chief ornaments of our time; he is devoted to literature, and he loves literary people, giving them assistance and a helping hand whenever he can. He is a regular harbour of refuge and patron to crowds of scribblers, all of whom look up to his guidance; and it was he who restored and gave new life to the arts and sciences when they were in rapid decline. He lends his house for recitals; he is wonderfully kind in attending readings which are held elsewhere than at his house; and he certainly never failed to put in an appearance at one of my recitals, so long as he happened to be in Rome at the time. It would be all the more disgraceful for me not to return the compliment, as I have the more honourable reasons for so doing. If I were busy in the courts, should I not consider myself obliged to a friend who appeared at the appointed time to save my bail? And so now, when I am given up heart and soul to my studies, are my obligations the less to a person who so regularly pays me the compliment of his presence, I won't say in the only matter in which he can oblige me, but certainly in the matter which obliges me most? But even if I owed him no return, no reciprocity, so to speak, of kindness, I should yet be anxious for the success of a man gifted with such charming and splendid genius, whose style, though essentially severe, is yet rendered most attractive by the dignity of his theme. He is writing an account of the deaths of distinguished men, certain of whom were very dear friends of mine. So I seem to myself to be performing a pious duty, for though I could not be present at their obsequies, yet I can attend, so to speak, at their funeral eulogies, which are all the more likely to bear the stamp of truth from the fact that they have been so long delayed. Farewell.
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To Minicianus.
I really must for once take a holiday to-day, as Titinius Capito is giving a reading, and I hardly know whether my obligation or my desire to go and hear him is the greater. He is an excellent person, quite one of the chief ornaments of our time; he is devoted to literature, and he loves literary people, giving them assistance and a helping hand whenever he can. He is a regular harbour of refuge and patron to crowds of scribblers, all of whom look up to his guidance; and it was he who restored and gave new life to the arts and sciences when they were in rapid decline. He lends his house for recitals; he is wonderfully kind in attending readings which are held elsewhere than at his house; and he certainly never failed to put in an appearance at one of my recitals, so long as he happened to be in Rome at the time. It would be all the more disgraceful for me not to return the compliment, as I have the more honourable reasons for so doing. If I were busy in the courts, should I not consider myself obliged to a friend who appeared at the appointed time to save my bail? And so now, when I am given up heart and soul to my studies, are my obligations the less to a person who so regularly pays me the compliment of his presence, I won't say in the only matter in which he can oblige me, but certainly in the matter which obliges me most? But even if I owed him no return, no reciprocity, so to speak, of kindness, I should yet be anxious for the success of a man gifted with such charming and splendid genius, whose style, though essentially severe, is yet rendered most attractive by the dignity of his theme. He is writing an account of the deaths of distinguished men, certain of whom were very dear friends of mine. So I seem to myself to be performing a pious duty, for though I could not be present at their obsequies, yet I can attend, so to speak, at their funeral eulogies, which are all the more likely to bear the stamp of truth from the fact that they have been so long delayed. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.