Chapter IX: Letter CXXIV

"But if oblivion be the lot of the dead in Hades yet will _I_, even there, remember" my dear Hypatia. Beset as I am by the sufferings of my country, and sick, as I see daily weapons of war about me and men slaughtered like altar-victims; drawing as I do breath infected by rotting corpses; expecting myself a similar fate, (for who can be hopeful when the very atmosphere is weighed down and dusky with the shadow of carnivorous birds?) yet do I cling to my country. For what else would my feeling be, born and bred as I am, and with the not ignoble tombs of my fathers before my eyes? For thee alone does it seem to me that I could neglect my country, and if I could get leisure, force myself to run away.[62]

LATIN LETTERS.--PLINY (62-114)

The most famous letters of the younger Pliny are those which
describe his country houses, that which gives account of his
uncle's death in the great eruption of Vesuvius, and his
correspondence with Trajan. But the first mentioned are
rather long and require a good deal of technical
annotation;[63] the second is to be found in many books; and
the letters which make up the third (except those concerning
Christianity, which are again to be found in many places)
are mostly short and on points of business merely. The one I
have chosen is extremely characteristic, in two respects, of
the author and of Roman ways generally. It shows Pliny's
good-nature and right feeling, but it shows also a certain
"priggishness" with which he has been specially and
personally charged, but which, to speak frankly, he shared
with a great many of his famous countrymen. Priggishness was
almost unknown among the Greeks--though one may suspect its
presence among those Spartans who have told so few tales of
themselves. But it flourished at Rome, and was one of
Rome's many--and one of her worst--legacies to us moderns.
Secondly, the letter is amusing because one thinks what an
English judge would surely think and would probably say, if
counsel for a lady were to inform the court _uberius et
latius_ what an extremely good opinion that lady's father
had of him, the learned speaker. A minor but still
interesting difference is in Pliny's slight hesitation about
taking a brief against a consul-elect. The subtleties of
Roman etiquette are endless.

PLINIUS TO HIS ASINIUS GALLUS--HEALTH

You both advise[64] and ask me to take up the cause of Corellia in her absence against C. Caecilius, Consul elect. I am obliged to you for advising me but I complain of your _asking_. I ought to be advised that I may know the fact, but not asked to do what it would be most disgraceful for me _not_ to do. Could I doubt about protecting the daughter of Corellius? True, there is between me and him against whom you call on me, not exactly close friendship but still some friendship. There is also to be taken into account the man's worth and the honour to which he is destined, a thing which I ought to hold in the greater respect that I have myself already enjoyed it. For it is natural that things which one has oneself attained, one should wish to be regarded with the greatest respect. But when I think that I am to help Corellius' daughter, all this appears idle and empty. I seem to see the man than whom our age had no one more dignified, more pious, of an acuter mind; the man whom, when I had begun to like him out of admiration I admired more, contrary to what usually happens, the more thoroughly I knew him. For I did know him thoroughly; he kept nothing hid from me, neither jocular nor serious, neither sad nor glad. I was quite a young man: but already he held me in honour and I will dare to say respect--as if I were his contemporary. He gave me his vote and interest in my standings for honours; he, when I entered upon them, was my introducer and companion; when I carried them out, my adviser and guide. In fact, in every business of mine, though he was an old man and in weak health, he was as forward as if he were young and strong. How much he furthered my reputation, privately, publicly, and even with the Chief of the State! For when by chance, in the presence of the Emperor Nerva, the conversation had turned on young men of worth, and several persons spoke in praise of me, he kept silence for a little, which gave him the more authority. Then in the weighty manner you know, "I must needs," he said, "say all the less about Secundus[65] because he never does anything but by my advice." By saying this he gave me the credit (which it would have been extravagant in me to hope for) of never doing anything in other than the wisest way, seeing that I always acted on the advice of the wisest man. Moreover, when dying, he said to his daughter, as she is wont to declare, "I have provided you, as if I were myself to live longer, many friends: but for the chief of them Secundus and Cornutus." Now when I remember this, I see I must take care not in any way to disappoint the trust in me of this most fore-thoughtful man. Therefore I will come to Corellia's help without the least delay and will not refuse to undergo inconveniences: though I think I shall secure not merely pardon but even praise from the very person who as you say is bringing a new action as against a woman, if it should happen to me to say these same things in court more amply and fully than the narrow room of a letter permits, either to excuse or indeed commend myself. Farewell.

LETTER OF THE "DARK" AGES

SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS (431?-482-4)

Caius Sollius Sidonius Apollinaris is one of the most
interesting figures of the troubled and obscure period
intervening between the fall of the Roman Empire _proper_
and the rise of mediaeval Europe. He was born at Lyons,
married Papianilla, daughter of Flavius Avitus, who was to
be one of the ephemeral "Emperors" of the West and the
Decadence, but was not injured by his father-in-law's
dethronement, and enjoyed various civil honours and posts.
In 471, though a married layman, he was peremptorily made a
bishop, and accordingly took orders, put away his wife, and
discharged his sacred duties as creditably as he had
discharged his profane ones. Sidonius was a not contemptible
poet, and an interesting letter-writer. Like most literary
men of his class he was given to what we call flattery; and
this Ecdicius, of whom he made a sort of Dark Age Admirable
Crichton, was his brother-in-law, an Emperor's son, and
Count or Duke (the titles were often interchangeable) of the
district. But it is fair to say that Gregory of Tours, the
accepted historian of the period, and living only in the
next century, makes the exploit over the Goths even more
signal--for he reduces the troopers to _ten_. The Arverni
(inhabitants of Auvergne and its neighbourhood) were the
strongest tribe in Southern Gaul when the Romans first came
into contact with them, retained much prominence in Caesar's
time, and had not lost individuality, if they had lost
independence, by this (5th) century. The mixture of "Arms"
and the "Gown" is noteworthy.