Complete Letters by Pliny the Younger

Author:Pliny the Younger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, UK
Published: 2006-02-06T05:00:00+00:00

20 To his friend Tacitus

?106–7

I have read your book,* and, as carefully as I could, I have marked the

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passages which I thought should be changed and those which should be deleted. I for my part make it my practice to tell the truth, as you for your part accept it gladly. None accepts criticism with greater forbearance than those who deserve the greatest praise. I now await

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the return of my own book* from you with your observations. What a pleasant and splendid exchange this is! I take great delight in the prospect (assuming that posterity pays some regard to us) that reports will circulate everywhere of the harmony, frankness, and loyalty we have shown each other in our lives. It will be an unusual

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and notable fact that two men virtually identical in age and distinction,* and with some standing in the world of literature (I am forced to speak of you rather unflatteringly, since I am describing myself as well), have nurtured each other’s writings.

I was still a mere youth when you were already flourishing in fame

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and renown, and I was eager to follow your example, to be, and to be thought to be, ‘closest, but by a long distance’* to you. There were many highly talented writers, but you seemed to me—our natural likeness to each other inclined that way—the one whom I could and should best imitate. So I rejoice all the more that in any conversation

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about literature, our names are bracketed together, and when men speak of you, my name at once crops up. There are some who are esteemed above us both, but our ranking is of no account to me, as

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we are linked together, for in my eyes he who is nearest to you ranks as the highest. Why, you must have observed in wills that unless someone has chanced to be a close friend of one or other of us, we receive identical legacies, and indeed we are cited together. The

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outcome of all this is that our affection for each other becomes still more ardent, since our literary interests, characters, and reputations, and above all the judgement of the public, bind us together with so many bonds. Farewell.

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