Letter 8013: I am pleased that you have read my speeches with your father at your side.
Pliny the Younger→Genialis|c. 107 AD|Pliny the Younger
education booksillness
To Genialis.
I am pleased that you have read my speeches with your father at your side. It will help you vastly to get on, to have a splendid scholar to tell you which passages deserve praises, and which the reverse, and that you should be trained to make a practice of giving a true opinion. You see whom you ought to follow, and in whose footsteps you should tread. You are indeed lucky to have a living model to copy, who is one of the best of men, and also your nearest relative; and lucky that he, whom of all others you ought to imitate, is the very person to whom Nature has willed that you should bear the greatest resemblance. Farewell.
L To Genialis.
I am pleased that you have read my speeches with your father at your side. It will help you vastly to get on, to have a splendid scholar to tell you which passages deserve praises, and which the reverse, and that you should be trained to make a practice of giving a true opinion. You see whom you ought to follow, and in whose footsteps you should tread. You are indeed lucky to have a living model to copy, who is one of the best of men, and also your nearest relative; and lucky that he, whom of all others you ought to imitate, is the very person to whom Nature has willed that you should bear the greatest resemblance. Farewell.
◆
To Genialis.
I am pleased that you have read my speeches with your father at your side. It will help you vastly to get on, to have a splendid scholar to tell you which passages deserve praises, and which the reverse, and that you should be trained to make a practice of giving a true opinion. You see whom you ought to follow, and in whose footsteps you should tread. You are indeed lucky to have a living model to copy, who is one of the best of men, and also your nearest relative; and lucky that he, whom of all others you ought to imitate, is the very person to whom Nature has willed that you should bear the greatest resemblance. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.