Letter 9028: After a long delay I have received your letters, but the three came together.
Pliny the Younger→Romanus, Patrician, and Exarch of Italy|c. 107 AD|Pliny the Younger
women
L To Romanus.
After a long delay I have received your letters, but the three came together. All were charmingly written in a most affectionate strain, and they were just the kind of letters that ought to have come from you, especially when I had looked for them for so long. In one of them you lay upon me the very pleasant duty of sending on your letter to that model of women, Plotina. * It shall be forwarded as you desire. In the same one you commend to my good will Pompilius Artemisius. I immediately granted his request. You tell me also that your grape harvest has been but a poor one; I can join you in your grumble in this respect, though we live so far apart. ** In another letter you announce that you are now dictating and writing a good deal, and by so doing you recall me to your remembrance. I am much obliged, and should be more so, if you had been good enough to let me read what you are writing or dictating.
It is only fair that you should let me read your compositions, as I let you read mine, even though they relate to some other person than myself. At the close of your letter you promise that, when I give you a more exact account of the way I am spending my time, you will play truant from your own domestic duties and at once rush to see me, and I warn you that I am even now forging chains to hold you, which you will find impossible to break through. Your third letter mentions that you have received my speech in defence of Clarius, and that it seems to you to contain more matter than it did when I read it before you. That is so, for I subsequently inserted many passages. You add that you have sent me other letters over which you took greater pains than usual, and you ask whether I have received them. I have not, but I am exceedingly anxious to. So send them on to me at the earliest possible opportunity with interest for the delay, which I shall reckon at twelve per cent, for I really cannot let you off more lightly. Farewell.
(*) The wife of the emperor Trajan.
(**) See letter ii. 13; Voconius Romanus was a native of Spain.
L To Romanus.
After a long delay I have received your letters, but the three came together. All were charmingly written in a most affectionate strain, and they were just the kind of letters that ought to have come from you, especially when I had looked for them for so long. In one of them you lay upon me the very pleasant duty of sending on your letter to that model of women, Plotina. * It shall be forwarded as you desire. In the same one you commend to my good will Pompilius Artemisius. I immediately granted his request. You tell me also that your grape harvest has been but a poor one; I can join you in your grumble in this respect, though we live so far apart. ** In another letter you announce that you are now dictating and writing a good deal, and by so doing you recall me to your remembrance. I am much obliged, and should be more so, if you had been good enough to let me read what you are writing or dictating.
It is only fair that you should let me read your compositions, as I let you read mine, even though they relate to some other person than myself. At the close of your letter you promise that, when I give you a more exact account of the way I am spending my time, you will play truant from your own domestic duties and at once rush to see me, and I warn you that I am even now forging chains to hold you, which you will find impossible to break through. Your third letter mentions that you have received my speech in defence of Clarius, and that it seems to you to contain more matter than it did when I read it before you. That is so, for I subsequently inserted many passages. You add that you have sent me other letters over which you took greater pains than usual, and you ask whether I have received them. I have not, but I am exceedingly anxious to. So send them on to me at the earliest possible opportunity with interest for the delay, which I shall reckon at twelve per cent, for I really cannot let you off more lightly. Farewell.
(*) The wife of the emperor Trajan.
(**) See letter ii. 13; Voconius Romanus was a native of Spain.
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L To Romanus.
After a long delay I have received your letters, but the three came together. All were charmingly written in a most affectionate strain, and they were just the kind of letters that ought to have come from you, especially when I had looked for them for so long. In one of them you lay upon me the very pleasant duty of sending on your letter to that model of women, Plotina. * It shall be forwarded as you desire. In the same one you commend to my good will Pompilius Artemisius. I immediately granted his request. You tell me also that your grape harvest has been but a poor one; I can join you in your grumble in this respect, though we live so far apart. ** In another letter you announce that you are now dictating and writing a good deal, and by so doing you recall me to your remembrance. I am much obliged, and should be more so, if you had been good enough to let me read what you are writing or dictating.
It is only fair that you should let me read your compositions, as I let you read mine, even though they relate to some other person than myself. At the close of your letter you promise that, when I give you a more exact account of the way I am spending my time, you will play truant from your own domestic duties and at once rush to see me, and I warn you that I am even now forging chains to hold you, which you will find impossible to break through. Your third letter mentions that you have received my speech in defence of Clarius, and that it seems to you to contain more matter than it did when I read it before you. That is so, for I subsequently inserted many passages. You add that you have sent me other letters over which you took greater pains than usual, and you ask whether I have received them. I have not, but I am exceedingly anxious to. So send them on to me at the earliest possible opportunity with interest for the delay, which I shall reckon at twelve per cent, for I really cannot let you off more lightly. Farewell.
(*) The wife of the emperor Trajan.
(**) See letter ii. 13; Voconius Romanus was a native of Spain.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.