Letter 7013: Your letter is at once a clear indication that you are studying and not studying.
To Ferox.
Your letter is at once a clear indication that you are studying and not studying. That is a riddle, you say, and so it is until I tell you more clearly what I mean. Well, I mean this. You say in your letter that you are not studying, but the letter was so polished that it could only have been written by a student. If not, you must be a supremely lucky person to be able to turn out such a finished product in in your hours of idleness and ease. Farewell.
Human translation - Attalus.org
Latin / Greek Original
C. PLINIUS FEROCI SUO S.
Eadem epistula et non studere te et studere significat. Aenigmata loquor? Ita plane, donec distinctius quod sentio enuntiem. Negat enim te studere, sed est tam polita quam nisi a studente non potest scribi; aut es tu super omnes beatus, si talia per desidiam et otium perficis. Vale.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from Attalus.org.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://www.attalus.org/pliny/ep7.html
Related Letters
When you are with me, and now again by letter, you often praise your friend Nonius to me for the generosity he has...
Terentianus explains trouble registering chirographs through the archidikastes.
Tabetheus urges Tiberianus to visit after his arrival at Alexandria.
When I have been pleading, it has often happened that the centumviri, after strictly preserving for a long time...
No, you could not have given me a pleasanter commission than to find a teacher of rhetoric for your brother's children.