The Letters of the Younger Pliny

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About Google Book Search Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world’s books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at http://books.google.com/ 1 ^g&£5^■£^£3!■■ HP -.v;...,,- -;■■ ','- ■■'--- ' -■'■■- ■ " :- '■"' :"■■■■■■' -" £ - ■'.■■■...■ ! ■ ■ ' : . ► HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY tk THE LETTERS YOUNGER PLINY. JUVENAL'S SATIRES, WITH NOTES, AND AN ENGLISH PROSE TRANSLATION, BY JOHN DELAWARE LEWIS, M.A. Cloth, pp. viii-514. Price 14/. 1873- LONDON: TROBNER k CO., LUDGATE HILL. THE LETTERS YOUNGER PLINY, LITERALLY TRANSLATED JOHN DELAWARE LEWIS, M.A. LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER, & CO., Lt? 1890. L-k Tl HARVakD\ UNIVERSITYI LIBRARY JAN 9 1943 I 7// rr-e 7». All rights reserved. PREFACE. Very few words are necessary by way of preface to the following translation. It has often occurred to me as singular that, in the present age of literal renderings from the principal Greek and Latin writers, the younger Pliny should have been entirely neglected — in our own country at least ; for, in Germany, three very accurate translations of the " Letters " have been given to the world by Schmid, Schafer, and Thierfeld. In England, we have only the versions of Melmoth and Lord Orrery, both of them published in the middle of the last century, and neither of them, whatever their merits (and these are great), answer ing to the requirements of modern scholarship. They contain, in fact, an admirable paraphrase of the " Letters " for the benefit of the English reader, but they are in places useless, and worse than useless, to him who seeks, through the aid of a translation, to obtain an accurate knowledge of, and a light to conduct him through the difficult passages in, the original. Moreover, they contain many positive mistakes. Even these versions have been out of. print till quite lately, when, I believe, an adaptation of Melmoth has been published by Mr. H. G. Bohn. So that vi PREFACE. while every Classical author of any repute (with the sole exception, as far as I know, of Macrobius) has been of late presented to the public in an English dress, the English reader of Pliny has been obliged to resort to the shelves of a public library, or to hunt among the secondhand booksellers' stores, or to await the turning up of a chance copy at a sale. Under these circumstances, it has appeared to me that the following translation (executed originally for my own amusement) might be of some slight use if put into print. As to the manner in which the work has been done, it is not for me to speak ; but in regard to the plan which I have attempted to follow, I cannot describe it better than in the language of a distinguished Professor, with some slight verbal alterations in his phraseology to suit it to the present case : " A translation may have two objects. It may be either intended to display the translator's felicity of dic tion, as when scholars produce English versions of Ana- creon or Horace for the amusement of those who are well acquainted with the originals, a pursuit for which I can not say that I have any esteem ; or it may be intended to facilitate the study of the original, while it gives the translator's countrymen generally some acquaintance with a foreign author, who deserves to be known even by those who are not acquainted with his language. The latter has been the object proposed in this translation. With this view I have always guarded myself from being seduced into paraphrase by the desire of elegance. The I PREFACE. vii text of the author has been rendered throughout as closely as is consistent with intelligibility." * I have followed Keil's text, but not servilely. When a reading differing from his has been adopted, the differ ence has commonly been referred to in a note. The notes are merely such as are absolutely necessary to make the English text intelligible to the reader. The editions consulted by me have been those of Cortius and Longolius (Amsterdam, 1734), Gierig (Leipsic, 1800), Gesner and Schaefer (Leipsic, 1805), Herbst " Epistolarum Delectus" (Halle, 1839), Doering (Freyberg, 1843), and " Selected Letters of Pliny," by Prichard and Bernard (Oxford, 1872). * Professor Chenery, Preface to the Assemblies of Al Hariri. Williams & Norgate, 1867. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. Pliny the Younger (C. Plinius Caecilius Secundus) was born in A.D. 61 or 62, during the reign of Nero, most probably at Comum, on the Lake Larius, now Lago di Como. He was adopted by his uncle, the Elder Pliny, the author of the " Natural History," in whose company he witnessed the famous eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79. He commenced practising at the bar in his nineteenth year. Not long afterwards he was appointed Military Tribune in Syria. On his return to Eome he continued his practice at the bar, and filled various offices : those of Quaestor, Praetor, Consul, &c. In the year of his Consul ship, a.d. 100, he wrote his "Panegyric" on the Emperor Trajan, the only production of his pen, besides his " Letters," which has come down to us. In a.d. 103 he was appointed Propraetor of the Province of Pontus, where he remained nearly two years. Nothing is known of the , time of his death. He was twice married, but had no children. ' PLINY'S LETTERS. BOOK I. (i.) To Septicius. You have frequently urged me to collect and publish such of my letters as had been written with rather more than usual care. I have collected them, without preserving the order of dates (since it was not a history that I was com piling), but just as each came to hand. It remains that you should have no cause to repent your advice, nor I my compliance. The result, in that case, will be that I shall hunt up such other letters as still lie neglected, and if I write any fresh ones, they shall not be withheld. (2.) To Arrianus. Foreseeing that your arrival will be later than was ex pected, I forward you the work promised in my former letters. This production I beg that you will, as your custom is, not only read, but also correct, more especially as I do not think I have ever written anything in precisely the same spirit of emulation. For I have attempted to imitate Demosthenes, always your model, and Calvus, who has lately become mine, at least in their rhetorical turns ; the power of such mighty men is indeed only to be attained by "the few whom the Gods favour." The subject-matter, too, lent itself to this kind of emulation \ \ 2 PLINY'S LETTERS. (if the word be not too presumptuous), being almost en tirely in the line of vigorous expression, such as to rouse me from the lethargy of my long sloth, provided only I was capable of being roused.

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