amnem: amnis,river, i.e., the Pactolus.
138. iugum Lydum: the Lydian ridge, i.e., Mt. Timolus.
obvius:meeting, facing, making your way toward, + dat.
139. ortus: acc. pl., source.
140. spumigero: foaming; the INTERLOCKED WORD ORDER suits the image of the spring waters pouring over and around Midas’ head.
qua: adv., in what place, where.
plurimus: referring to fonti but with adv. force, where it comes out the most, i.e., where the water comes rushing forth from the spring.
141. subde: subdere, to put under, plunge.
subde…simul, simul elue: ANAPHORA and CHIASMUS help suggest the simultaneity and finality of the two actions.
elue: eluere,to wash away.
144. semine: semen, seed.
venae: vena,vein (here, of gold).
145. madidis: wet, soaked.
Midas confesses his sin and is told how to atone for it.
Attonitus novitate mali, divesque miserque, effugere optat opes, et quae modo voverat, odit. Copia nulla famem relevat; sitis arida guttur 130 urit, et inviso meritus torquetur ab auro. Ad caelumque manus et splendida bracchia tollens, “Da veniam, Lenaee pater, peccavimus,” inquit, “sed miserere, precor, speciosoque eripe damno!” Mite deum numen: Bacchus peccasse fatentem 135 restituit pactique fide data munera solvit. “Neve male optato maneas circumlitus auro, vade,” ait, “ad magnis vicinum Sardibus amnem, perque iugum Lydum labentibus obvius undis carpe viam, donec venias ad fluminis ortus; 140 spumigeroque tuum fonti, qua plurimus exit, subde caput corpusque simul, simul elue crimen.” Rex iussae succedit aquae; vis aurea tinxit flumen et humano de corpore cessit in amnem. Nunc quoque, iam veteris percepto semine venae, 145 arva rigent auro, madidis pallentia glaebis.
Midas turning his daughter into gold From a non-Ovidian version of the tale
Bettmann/CORBIS.
PLINY’S LETTERS
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (known as “Pliny the Younger,” to distinguish him from his famous uncle, the elder Pliny) was born in Comum in northern Italy, ca. A.D. 61. After his father’s death, he lived, along with his mother, in the home of his uncle, an assiduous scholar and author of the monumental 37-volume encyclopedia, the Naturalis Historia; eventually the young man was adopted by his uncle and inherited his considerable estate. Following his education, which included studying rhetoric with the eminent orator and educator Quintilian, Pliny entered the legal profession, arguing cases throughout his career in the civil courts and prosecuting a number of corrupt provincial governors in the senate. He rose to the praetorship in 93 and the consulship in 100, and had a distinguished career as a civil servant; his series of administrative posts held during the reigns of Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan culminated in the governorship of Bithynia, which he commenced in A.D. 109 or 110 and continued until his death in ca. 112. He had three marriages, the last to Calpurnia Fabata, a younger woman to whom he was deeply and affectionately devoted.
As a literary figure he composed a variety of works, including drama and poetry, which has been almost entirely lost, as well as an extant speech to the senate known as the Panegyricus, in which he expresses gratitude for his elevation to the consulship and praises Trajan for the benevolence of his reign in contrast to that of the despotic Domitian. Pliny is best known, however, for his Epistulae, nine volumes of personal correspondence carefully edited by him for publication and issued between A.D. 98 and 109 in units of one or more books, as well as a 10th volume, less polished and likely published posthumously, comprising letters both to and from the emperor Trajan. Though the first nine books were written with an eye to publication and consequently lack the spontaneity of Cicero’s letters, and though they are occasionally marred by self-consciousness and self-praise, they nevertheless reveal to us much about a Roman of rank who was conscientious, reliable, kind, affectionate, philanthropic, and sensitive—one who, refusing to be dismayed by the evils about him, made the very most of the best of his times. Reading his letters, we feel that we have come to know a decent man, and we are grateful to have this detailed evidence of the good in Roman life as at least a partial corrective to the black and pessimistic pictures painted by such of Pliny’s contemporaries as the historian Tacitus (a friend and correspondent), the epigrammatist Martial (an influence on Pliny’s own verse), and the scathing satirist Juvenal.
The rich variety of selections from the Epistulae chosen for this book include: the dedicatory preface to the first volume; three quite different letters to friends about the pleasures of country life and escape from the urban bustle; another on the suicide of a close friend who had suffered long from disease; one to a young friend on the proper manner of hosting clients and freedmen at a dinner-party (an informative counterpoint to, and an inspiration for, one of Juvenal’s satires on the same topic); a long letter to Tacitus, for use in his Histories, containing eye-witness accounts of the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79 and the death of Pliny the Elder in that disaster; a brief missive to another friend on the devotion of a wife who had courageously joined her husband in suicide; a tender note to his wife Calpurnia, professing how much he misses her and thinks of her in her absence; and, finally, an exchange of letters between Pliny and Trajan discussing policies for investigating and punishing Christians in the province of Bithynia, invaluable documents for our knowledge of the persecutions and early church ritual.
Page from manuscript of Pliny’s Epistulae (3.4.8–9 and 3.5.1–3) Italy, 6th century A.D. The Pierpont Morgan Library New York, New York
The Pierpont Morgan Library/Art Resource, NY.
1. Septicio Suo S.: Septicius, an equestrian and praetorian prefect under Hadrian (ca. A.D. 119–121), is little known outside the four letters addressed to him by Pliny; in Epistulae 2.9.4 Pliny remarks, C. Septicium, quo nihil verius, nihil simplicius, nihil candidius, nihil fidelius novi. The S. = salutem (dicit), says greetings, a standard salutation in Roman letters.
2. si quas: if any = whatever.
paulo: adv., a little, somewhat; the preserved letters are in general less spontaneous, more carefully (accuratius) composed and edited than most of Cicero’s, as Pliny intended them for publication.
3. non…ordine (4): although the individual books were published successively, beginning ca. A.D. 99, the arrangement of the letters within a particular book is not strictly chronological.
4. ut…venerat (5): Pliny’s arrangement of the letters was in fact far more calculated than he suggests here.
5. superest: superesse, to be left over, remain; + dat., to survive.
paeniteat: with the impers. superest, it remains (that); paenitet, also impers., takes an acc. of the repentant person + a gen. of the thing which occasions the repentance, lit., ut nec…te consilii…paeniteat = that it not repent you of your advice, i.e., that you not regret your advice.
7. requiram: NOUN CL. OF RESULT, dependent on fiet.
si…addidero: i.e., if he writes any more, as indeed he did.
8. Cornelio Tacito: Publius Cornelius Tacitus, ca. A.D. 56–118, a close friend of Pliny, addressee of 11 of his letters, and one of the most famous Roman historians; his partially extant Annals and Histories covered the period from the death of Augustus to the death of Domitian, and his Germania is the earliest full-length portrait of the German people.
9. licet: impers., + inf. or subjunct.; with rideas = you may laugh or you have a right to laugh.
nosti: = novisti.
apros: aper,wild boar.
10. ut…discederem (11): RESULT CL.; i.e., he was not so busy with hunting that it distracted him from his rest (inertia = otium).
