Letter 9018: Your letter proves how attentively, how studiously, and with what powers of memory you have read my books, but you...
To Sabinus.
Your letter proves how attentively, how studiously, and with what powers of memory you have read my books, but you are only bringing work upon your own shoulders when you coax and invite me to send on to you as many of my compositions as I possibly can. I will do so, and will forward them in portions and piecemeal, so to speak, so that I may not fatigue that memory of yours, to which I am so much indebted, by throwing upon it too frequent or too heavy a load. I don't wish to compel you, when you are staggering under the burden, to quit each particular portion for the whole and leave the beginning in hastening on to what follows. Farewell.
Human translation - Attalus.org
Latin / Greek Original
C. PLINIUS SABINO SUO S.
Qua intentione, quo studio, qua denique memoria legeris libellos meos, epistula tua ostendit. Ipse igitur exhibes negotium tibi qui elicis et invitas, ut quam plurima communicare tecum velim. Faciam, per partes tamen et quasi digesta, ne istam ipsam memoriam, cui gratias ago, assiduitate et copia turbem oneratamque et quasi oppressam cogam pluribus singula posterioribus priora dimittere. 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/ep9.html
Related Letters
Ambrose to Sabinus — greetings in the Lord.
Forgive the delay in writing back.
Your question about paradise deserves a careful answer, for the subject touches both history and mystery.
You have asked what I think of Jerome's new translation [Jerome was in the process of producing what would become...
It is very kind of you to press me to write to you as many letters as possible, and as long as possible.