Did not he who wrote thus of me deserve that I should both speed him then, as I did, in friendliest fashion, and mourn him now, which I do, as a dear friend departed? For he gave me the best that he had to give and would have given me more had be been able. Yet what greater gift can be given to any man than glory and praise and immortality? But his writings will not be im mortal? Perhaps not : but he wrote them as if they would be." Other letters of special interest are VI. 16, one of several addressed to the historian Tacitus which gives a vivid account of the death of the elder Pliny (q.v. for citations from the letter) through the eruption of Vesuvius; VI. 20, also to Tacitus, narrating the ex periences of Pliny and his mother; those (I. 18, III. 8, V. io, IX. 34) written to Suetonius, the biographer of the twelve Cae sars; II. 17 which gives a description of Pliny's Laurentine villa; VII. 27 which recounts a couple of ghost stories.
The Correspondence with Trajan which consists, apart from the first 15 letters, wholly of letters written during Pliny's gov ernorship of Bithynia, contains much that is of value regarding provincial administration under the empire. But the interest of the modern reader centres chiefly in the two letters (96 and 97) relating to the Christians. In the first Pliny writes to the em peror: Sire, It is my custom to refer to you all matters about which I am doubtful: for who is better able to direct my hesitation or instruct my ignorance? At trials of Christians I have never been present and I am therefore ignorant of the usual practice in regard to the matter and the limits of punishment or inquiry. I have had also no little difficulty as to whether some distinction of age should be made, or if persons of the most tender age stand on the same footing as the more adult ; whether the penitent is to be pardoned or if a person who has once been a Christian shall have no benefit of ceasing to be one. Whether the mere name of Christian, apart from crime, is punishable, or only crime coupled with the name. Meanwhile in the case of those reported to me as Christians I have followed this procedure. I asked themselves whether they were Christians. If they admitted it, I put the question a second time and a third, with threats of punishment. If they persisted in their confession, I ordered them to be led to execution ; for I had no doubt that whatever the nature of that which they confessed, in any case their pertinacity and inflexible obstinacy deserved to be punished. There were others of a similar delusion whom, as they were Roman citizens, I noted for remission to Rome.
Presently the mere handling of the matter produced the usual result of spreading the crime, and more varieties occurred.
There was published an anonymous pamphlet containing many names. Those who denied that they were Christians or ever had been, when, after me, they invoked the gods and worshipped with incense and wine your statue which I had ordered to be brought for that purpose along with the images of the gods, and, further, reviled Christ—things which it is said that no real Christian will do under any compulsion—I considered should be dismissed. Others who were named by the informer admitted that they were Christians and presently denied it, admitting indeed that they had been, but saying that they had ceased to be, some several years before, some even twenty. All these likewise did homage to your statue and to the images of the gods and reviled Christ. They affirmed moreover that the sum of their crime or error was that they had been wont to meet together on a fixed day before day break and to repeat among themselves in turn a hymn to Christ as to a god and to bind themselves by an oath (sacramentum), not for some wickedness but not to commit theft, not to commit rob bery, not to commit adultery, not to break their word, not to deny a deposit when demanded ; these things duly done, it had been their custom to disperse and to meet again to take food—of an ordinary and harmless kind. Even this they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had for bidden the existence of societies (hetaeriae). For these reasons I deemed it all the more necessary to find out the truth by the examination—even with torture—of two maids who were called deaconesses (ministrae=o,a6vot). I found nothing but a perverse and extravagant superstition.
I have therefore adjourned the inquiry and have had recourse to consulting you. For the matter seemed to me one deserving a consultation, especially in view of the number of those imperilled. For many persons of every age, of every rank, of both sexes even, are daily involved and will be, since not in the cities only, but in villages and country districts as well, has spread the contagion of that superstition—which it seems possible to check and correct. At any rate it is certain that temples which were already almost deserted have begun to be frequented ; the customary religious rites, long intermitted, are being restored ; and fodder for sacri ficial victims—for which hitherto it was rare to find a purchaser —now finds a market. Whence it is easy to infer what a mass of men might be reformed, if penitence were recognized.