1001 (return)
[ The greater part of
the following letters were written by Pliny during his administration in
the province of Bithynia. They are of a style and character extremely
different from those in the preceding collection; whence some critics have
injudiciously inferred that they are the production of another hand: not
considering that the occasion necessarily required a different manner. In
letters of business, as these chiefly are, turn and sentiment would be
foreign and impertinent; politeness and elegance of expression being the
essentials that constitute perfection in this kind: and in that view,
though they may be less entertaining, they have not less merit than the
former. But besides their particular excellence as letters, they have a
farther recommendation as so many valuable pieces of history, by throwing
a strong light upon the character of one of the most amiable and glorious
princes in the Roman annals. Trajan appears throughout in the most
striking attitude that majesty can be placed in; in the exertion of power
to the godlike purposes of justice and benevolence: and what one of the
ancient historians has said of him is here clearly verified, that "he
rather chose to be loved than flattered by his people." To have been
distinguished by the favour and friendship of a monarch of so exalted a
character is an honour that reflects the brightest lustre upon our author;
as to have been served and celebrated by a courtier of Pliny's genius and
virtues is the noblest monunient of glory that could have been raised to
Trajan. M.]
1002 (return)
[ Nerva, who succeeded
Domitian, reigned but sixteen months and a few days. Before his death he
not only adopted Trajan, and named him for his successor, but actually
admitted him into a share of the government; giving him the titles of
Cæsar, Germanicus and Imperator. Vid. Plin. Paneg. M.]
1003 (return)
[ $16,000.]
1004 (return)
[ One of the four
governments of Lower Egypt. M.]
1005 (return)
[ The extensive power
of paternal authority was (as has been observed in the notes above)
peculiar to the Romans. But after Chrysippus was made a denizen of Rome,
he was not, it would seem, consequentially entitled to that privilege over
those children which were born before his denization. On the other hand,
if it was expressly granted him, his children could not preserve their
right of patronage over their own freedmen, because that right would of
course devolve to their father, by means of this acquired dominion over
them. The denization therefore of his children is as expressly solicited
as his own. But both parties becoming quirites, the children by this
creation, and not pleading in right of their father, would be patres fam.
To prevent which the clause is added, "ita ut sint in patris potestate:"
as there is another to save to them their rights of patronage over their
freedmen, though they were reduced in patrmam potestate. M.]
1006 (return)
[ Pliny enjoyed the
office of treasurer in conjunction with Cornutus Tertullus. It was the
custom at Rome for those who had colleagues to administer the duties of
their posts by monthly turns. Buchner. M.]
1007 (return)
[ About $16,000; the
annual income of Pliny's estate in Tuscany. He mentions another near Comum
in Milan, the yearly value of which does not appear. We find him likewise
meditating the purchase of an estate, for which he was to give about
$117,000 of our money; but whether he ever completed that purchase is
uncertain. This, however, we are sure of, that his fortunes were but
moderate, considering his high station and necessary expenses: and yet, by
the advantage of a judicious economy, we have seen him in the course of
these letters, exercising a liberality of which after ages have furnished
no parallel. M.]
1008 (return)
[ The senators were not
allowed to go from Rome into the provinces without having first obtained
leave of the emperor. Sicily, however, had the privilege to be excepted
out of that law; as Gallia Narbonensis afterwards was, by Claudius Cæsar.
Tacit. Ann. XII. C. 23. M.]
1009 (return)
[ One of the seven
priests who presided over the feasts appointed in honour of Jupiter and
the other gods, an office, as appears, of high dignity, since Pliny ranks
it with the augurship.]
1010 (return)
[ Bithynia, a province
in Anatolia, or Asia Minor, of which Pliny was appointed governor by
Trajan, in the sixth year of his reign, A. D. 103, not as an ordinary
proconsul, but as that emperor's own lieutenant, with powers
extraordinary. (See Dio.) The following letters were written during his
administration of that province. M.]
1011 (return)
[ A north wind in the
Grecian seas, which rises yearly some time in July, and continues to the
end of August; though others extend it to the middle of September. They
blow only in the day-time. Varenius's Geogr. V.I. p. 513. M.]
1012 (return)
[ The inhabitants of
Prusa (Brusa), a principal city of Bithynia.]
1013 (return)
[ In the sixth year of
Trajan's reign, A. D. 103, and the 41st of our author's age: he continued
in this province about eighteen months. Vid. Mass, in Vit. Phin. 129. M.]
1014 (return)
[ Among other noble
works which this glorious emperor executed, the forum or square which went
by his name seems to have been the most magnificent. It was built with the
foreign spoils he had taken in war. The covering of this edifice was all
brass, the porticoes exceedingly beautiful and magnificent, with pillars
of more than ordinary height and dimensions. In the centre of this forum
was erected the famous pillar which has been already described.]
1015 (return)
[ It is probable the
victory here alluded to was that famous one which Trajan gained over the
Daciaiss; some account of which has been given in the notes above. It is
certain, at least, Pliny lived to see his wish accomplished, this emperor
having carried the Roman splendour to its highest pitch, and extended the
dominions of the empire farther than any of his predecessors; as after his
death it began to decline. M.]
1016 (return)
[ The capital of
Bithynia; its modern name is Izmid.]
1017 (return)
[ The town of
Panticapoeum, also called Bosporus, standing on the European side of the
Cimmerian Bosporus (Straits of Kaffa), in the modern Crimea.]
1018 (return)
[ Nicea (as appears by
the 15th letter of this book), a city in Bithynia, now called Iznik. M.]
1019 (return)
[ Sarmatia was divided
into European, Asiatic, and German Sarmatia. It is not exactly known what
bounds the ancients gave to this extensive region; however, in general, it
comprehended the northern part of Russia, and the greater part of Poland,
&c. M.]
1020 (return)
[ The first invention
of public couriers is ascribed to Cyrus, who, in order to receive the
earliest intelligence from the governors of the several provinces, erected
post-houses throughout the kingdom of Persia, at equal distances, which
supplied men and horses to forward the public despatches. Augustus was the
first who introduced this most useful institution among the Romans, by
employing post-chaises, disposed at convenient distances, for the purpose
of political intelligence. The magistrates of every city were obliged to
furnish horses for these messengers, upon producing a diploma, or a kind
of warrant, either from the emperor himself or from those who had that
authority under him. Sometimes, though upon very extraordinary occasions,
persons who travelled upon their private affairs, were allowed the use of
these post-chaises. It is surprising they were not sooner used for the
purposes of commerce and private communication. Louis XI. first
established them in France, in the year 1414; but it was not till later (date uncertain) that the post-office was settled in England by Act of
Parliament, M.]
1021 (return)
[ Particular temples,
altars, and statues were allowed among the Romans as places of privilege
and sanctuary to slaves, debtors and malefactors. This custom was
introduced by Romulus, who borrowed it probably from the Greeks; but
during the free state of Rome, few of these asylums were permitted. This
custom prevailed most under the emperors, till it grew so scandalous that
the Emperor Pius found it necessary to restrain those privileged places by
an edict. See Lipsii Excurs. ad Taeiti Ann. III, C. 36, M.]
1022 (return)
[ General under
Deeebalus, king of the Dacians. M.]
1023 (return)
[ A province in Daeia,
comprehending the southern parts of Servia and part of Bulgaria. M.]
1024 (return)
[ The second expedition
of Trajan against Decebalus was undertaken the same year that Pliny went
governor into this province; the reason therefore why Pliny sent this
Calhidromus to the emperor seems to be that some use might possibly be
made of him in favour of that design, M.]
1025 (return)
[ Receiver of the
finances. M.]
1026 (return)
[ The coast round the
Black Sea.]
1027 (return)
[ The text calls him
primipilarem, that is, one who had been Prirnipilus, in officer in the
army, whose post was both highly honourable and profitable; among other
parts of his office he had the care of the eagle, or chief standard of the
legion. M.]
1028 (return)
[ Slaves who were
purchased by the public. M.]
1029 (return)
[ The most probable
conjecture (for it is a point of a good deal of obscurity) concerning the
beneficiary seems to be that they were a certain number of soldiers
exempted from the usual duty of their office, in order to be employed as a
sort of body-guards to the general. These were probably foot; as the
equites here mentioned were perhaps of the same nature, only that they
served on horseback. Equites singulares Cæsaris Augusti, &c., are
frequently met with upon ancient inscriptions, and are generally supposed
to mean the bodyguards of the emperor. M.]
1030 (return)
[ A province in Asia
Minor, bounded by the Black Sea on the north, Bithynia on the west, Pontus
on the east, and Phrygia on the south.]
1031 (return)
[ The Roman policy
excluded slaves from entering into military service, and it was death if
they did so. However, upon cases of great necessity, this maxim was
dispensed with; but then they were first made free before they were
received into the army, excepting only (as Servius in his notes upon
Virgil) observes after the fatal battle of Cannae; when the public
distress was so great that the Romans recruited their army with their
slaves, though they had not time to give them their freedom. One reason,
perhaps, of this policy might be that they did not think it safe to arm so
considerable a body of men, whose numbers, in the times when the Roman
luxury was at its highest, we may have some idea of by the instance which
Pun the naturalist mentions of Claudius Isodorus, who at the time of his
death was possessed of no less than 4,116 slaves, notwithstanding he had
lost great numbers in the civil wars. Pun. Hist. Nat. XXXIII. 10. M.]
1032 (return)
[ A punishment among
the Romans, usually inflicted upon slaves, by which they were to engage
with wild beasts, or perform the part of gladiators, in the public shows.
M.]
1033 (return)
[ It has been generally
imagined that the ancients had not the art of raising water by engines;
but this passage seems to favour the contrary opinion. The word in the
original is sipho, which Hesychius explains (as one of the commentators
observes) "instrumentuns ad jaculandas aquas adversas incendia; an
instrument to throw up water against fires." But there is a passage in
Seneca which seems to put this matter beyond conjecture, though none of
the critics upon this place have taken notice of it: "Solemiss," says he,
"duabus manibus inter se junctis aguam concipere, et com pressa utrinque
palma in modum ciphonis exprimere" (Q. N. 1. II. 16) where we plainly see
the use of this sipho was to throw UP water, and consequently the Romans
were acquainted with that art. The account which Pliny gives of his
fountains at Tuscum is likewise another evident proof. M.]
1034 (return)
[ This was an
anniversary custom observed throughout the empire on the 30th of December.
M.]
1035 (return)
[ About $132,000.]
1036 (return)
[ About $80,000.]
1037 (return)
[ About $400,000. To
those who are not acquainted with the immense riches of the ancients, it
may seem incredible that a city, and not the capital one either, of a
conquered province should expend so large a sum of money upon only the
shell (as it appears to be) of a theatre: but Asia was esteemed the most
considerable part of the world for wealth; its fertility and exportations
(as Tully observes) exceeding that of all other countries. M.]
1038 (return)
[ The word carte, in
the original, comprehends more than what we call the pit in our theatres,
as at means the whole space lit which the spectators sat. These theatres
being open at the top, the galleries here mentioned were for the
convenience of retiring in bad weather. M.]
1039 (return)
[ A place in which the
athletic exercises were performed, and where the philosophers also used to
read their lectures. M.]
1040 (return)
[ The Roman foot
consisted of 11.71 inches of our standard, M.]
1041 (return)
[ A colony in the
district of Cataonia, in Cappadocia.]
1042 (return)
[ The honorary
senators, that is, such who were not received into the council of the city
by election, but by the appointment of the emperor, paid a certain sum of
money upon their admission into the senate. M.]
1043 (return)
[ "Graeculi. Even under
the empire, with its relaxed morality and luxurious tone, the Romans
continued to apply this contemptuous designation to people to whom they
owed what taste for art and culture they possessed." Church and Brodribb.]
1044 (return)
[ A Roman cubit is
equal to a foot 5.406 inches of our measure. Arbuthanot's Tab. M.]
1045 (return)
[ About $480.]
1046 (return)
[ About $120.]
1047 (return)
[ A diploma is properly
a grant of certain privileges either to particular places or persons. It
signifies also grants of other kinds; and it sometimes means
post-warrants, as, perhaps, it does in this place. M.]
1048 (return)
[ A city in Bithynia.
M.]
1049 (return)
[ Cybele, Rhea, or Ops,
as she is otherwise called; from whom, according to the pagan creed, the
rest of the gods are supposed to have descended. M.]
1040b (return)
[ Whatever was
legally consecrated was ever afterwards unapplicable to profane uses. M.]
1041b (return)
[ That is, a city not
admitted to enjoy the laws and privileges of Rome. M.]
1042b (return)
[ The reason why they
did not choose to borrow of the public at the same rate of interest which
they paid to private persons was (as one of the Commentators observes)
because in the former instance they were obliged to give security, whereas
in the latter they could raise money upon their personal credit. M.]
1043b (return)
[ These, in the
original institution as settled by Augustus, were only commanders of his
body-guards; but in the later times of the Roman empire they were next in
authority under the emperor, to whom they seem to have acted as a sort of
prime ministers. M.]
1044b (return)
[ The provinces were
divided into, a kind of circuits called conventus, whither the proconsuls
used to go in order to administer justice. The judges here mentioned must
not be understood to mean the same sort of judicial officers as with us:
they rather answered to our juries. M.]
1045b (return)
[ By the imperial
constitutions the philosophers were exempted from all public functions.
Catariscus. M.]
1046b (return)
[ About $24,000.]
1047b (return)
[ Geographers are not
agreed where to place this city; Cellarius conjectures it may possibly be
the same with Prusa ad Olympum, Prusa at the foot of Mount Olympus in
Mysia.]
1048b (return)
[ Domitian.]
1049b (return)
[ That is, whether
they should be considered in a state of freedom or slavery. M.]
1050 (return)
[ "Parents throughout
the entire ancient world had the right to expose their children and leave
them to their fate. Hence would sometimes arise the question whether such
a child, if found and brought up by another, was entitled to his freedom,
whether also the person thus adopting him must grant him his freedom
without repayment for the cost of maintenance." Church and Brodribb.]
1051 (return)
[ "This decision of
Trajan, the effect of which would be that persons would be slow to adopt
an abandoned child which, when brought up, its natural parents could
claim back without any compensation for its nurture, seems harsh, and we
find that it was disregarded by the later emperors in their legal
decisions on the subject." Church and Brodribb.]
1052 (return)
[ And consequently by
the Roman laws unapplicable to any other purpose. M.]
1053 (return)
[ The Roman provinces
in the times of the emperors were of two sorts: those which were
distinguished by the name of the provinciae Cæsaris and the provinciae
senatus. The provinciae Cæsaris, or imperial provinces, were such as the
emperor, for reasons of policy, reserved to his own immediate
administration, or of those whom he thought proper to appoint: the
provinciae senatus, or proconsular provinces, were such as he left to the
government of proconsuls or praetors, chosen in the ordinary method of
election. (Vid. Suet, in Aug. V. 47.) Of the former kind was Bithynis, at
the time when our author presided there. (Vid. Masson. Vit. Plin. p. 133.)
M.]
1054 (return)
[ A province in Asia,
bordering upon the Black Sea, and by some ancient geographers considered
as one province with Bithynia. M.]
1055 (return)
[ About $2,000. M.]
1056 (return)
[ Cities of Pontus near
the Euxine or Black Sea. M.]
1057 (return)
[ Gordium, the old
capital of Phrygia. It afterwards, in the reign of the Emperor Augustus,
received the name of Juliopolis. (See Smith's Classical Diet.)]
1058 (return)
[ Pompey the Great
having subdued Mithridates, and by that means enlarged the Roman empire,
passed several laws relating to the newly conquered provinces, and, among
others, that which is here mentioned. M.]
1059 (return)
[ The right of electing
Senators did not originally belong to the censors, who were only, as
Cicero somewhere calls them, guardians of the discipline and manners of
the city; but in process of time they engrossed the whole privilege of
conferring that honour. M.]
1060 (return)
[ This, probably, was
some act whereby the city was to ratify and confirm the proceedings of
Dion under the commission assigned to him.]
1061 (return)
[ It was a notion which
generally prevailed with the ancients, in the Jewish as well as heathen
world, that there was a pollution in the contact of dead bodies, and this
they extended to the very house in which the corpse lay, and even to the
uncovered vessels that stood in the same room. (Vid. Pot. Antiq. V. II.
181.) From some such opinion as this it is probable that the circumstance,
here mentioned, of placing Trajan's statue where these bodies were
deposited, was esteemed as a mark of disrespect to his person.]
1062 (return)
[ A thriving Greek
colony in the territory of Sinopis, on the Euxine.]
1063 (return)
[ A colony of Athenians
in the province of Pontus. Their town, Amisus, on the coast, was one of
the residences of Mithridates.]
1064 (return)
[ Casaubon, in his
observations upon Theophrastus (as cited by one of the commentators)
informs us that there were at Athens and other cities of Greece Certain
fraternities which paid into a common chest a monthly contribution towards
the support of such of their members who had fallen into misfortunes; upon
condition that, if ever they arrived to more prosperous circumstances,
they should repay into the general fund the money so advanced. M.]
1065 (return)
[ By the law for
encouragement of matrimony (some account of which has already been given
in the notes above), as a penalty upon those who lived bachelors, they
were declared incapable of inheriting any legacy by will; so likewise, if
being married, they had no children, they could not claim the full
advantage of benefactions of that kind.]
1066 (return)
[ This letter is
esteemed as almost the only genuine monument of ecclesiastical antiquity
relating to the times immediately succeeding the Apostles, it being
written at most not above forty years after the death of St. Paul. It was
preserved by the Christians themselves as a clear and unsuspicious
evidence of the purity of their doctrines, and is frequently appealed to
by the early writers of the Church against the calumnies of their
adversaries. M.]
1067 (return)
[ It was one of the
privileges of a Roman citizen, secured by the Semprorian law, that he
could not be capitally convicted but by the suffrage of the people; which
seems to have been still so far in force as to make it necessary to send
the persons here mentioned to Rome. M.]
1068 (return)
[ These women, it is
supposed, exercised the same office as Phoebe mentioned by St. Paul, whom
he styles deaconess of the church of Cenchrea. Their business was to tend
the poor and sick, and other charitable offices; as also to assist at the
ceremony of female baptism, for the more decent performance of that rite:
as Vossius observes upon this passage. M.]
1069 (return)
[ If we impartially
examine this prosecution of the Christians, we shall find it to have been
grounded on the ancient constitution of the state, and not to have
proceeded from a cruel or arbitrary temper in Trajan. The Roman
legislature appears to have been early jealous of any innovation in point
of public worship; and we find the magistrates, during the old republic
frequently interposing in cases of that nature. Valerius Maximus has
collected some instances to that purpose (L. I. C. 3), and Livy mentions
it as an established principle of the earlier ages of the commonwealth, to
guard against the introduction of foreign ceremonies of religion. It was
an old and fixed maxim likewise of the Roman government not to suffer any
unlicensed assemblies of the people. From hence it seems evident that the
Christians had rendered themselves obnoxious not so much to Trajan as to
the ancient and settled laws of the state, by introducing a foreign
worship, and assembling themselves without authority. M.]
1070 (return)
[ On the coast of
Paphlagonia.]
1071 (return)
[ By the Papian law,
which passed in the consulship of M. Papius Mutilus and Q. Poppeas
Secundus, u. c. 761, if a freedman died worth a hundred thousand sesterces
(or about $4,000 of our money), leaving only one child, his patron (that
is, the master from whom he received his liberty) was entitled to half his
estate; if he left two children, to one-third; but if more than two, then
the patron was absolutely excluded. This was afterwards altered by
Justinian, Inst. 1. III. tit. 8. M.]
1072 (return)
[ About $7,000.]
1073 (return)
[ About $175]
1074 (return)
[ About $350.]
1075 (return)
[ The denarius=7 cents.
The sum total, then, distributed among one thousand persons at the rate
of, say, two denara a piece would amount to about $350.]
1076 (return)
[ These games are
called Iselastic from the Greek word invehor, because the victors, drawn
by white horses, and wearing crowns on their heads, were conducted with
great pomp into their respective cities, which they entered through a
breach in the walls made for that purpose; intimating, as Plutarch
observes, that a City which produced such able and victorious citizens,
had little occasion for the defence of walls (Catanaeus). They received
also annually a certain honourable stipend from the public. M.]
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