Letter 9020: Your letter was all the more agreeable to me on account of its length, and because it referred throughout to my books.

Pliny the YoungerVenator|c. 107 AD|Pliny the Younger
education books

To Venator.

Your letter was all the more agreeable to me on account of its length, and because it referred throughout to my books. I am not surprised that they please you, since you extend the love you bear me to my writings. I am at present chiefly occupied in getting in my grape harvest, which, though light, is still more plentiful than I had expected - if you can describe as getting in a grape harvest the plucking of an occasional grape, a visit to the wine-press, a taste of the must from the vat, and surprise visits to the domestic servants I brought from the city, who are now superintending my country servants and have left me to my secretaries and readers. Farewell.

Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.

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