catch, they bade them tell us what pleased us mightily--if indeed we may
no more have to wander in the footsteps of those fellows who made off
into the wastes of the interior. For they said they were going to stay
where they were and wanted to find out what sort of fellows _we_ were,
who dared to separate ourselves so many days' journey from our own place
that we might fight with men of war, nomads in way of life, and whose
civil polity was like our discipline in war-time. Therefore, as one who
by God's help shall to-morrow conquer--nay, conquer again if needful
(for I would say nothing of bad omen) I commit to thee the care of my
children: for it is fitting that thou, their uncle, shouldest carry over
thine affection to them.

LETTER CXXIV

"But if oblivion be the lot of the dead in Hades yet will _I_, even
there, remember" my dear Hypatia. Beset as I am by the sufferings of my
country, and sick, as I see daily weapons of war about me and men
slaughtered like altar-victims; drawing as I do breath infected by
rotting corpses; expecting myself a similar fate, (for who can be
hopeful when the very atmosphere is weighed down and dusky with the
shadow of carnivorous birds?) yet do I cling to my country. For what
else would my feeling be, born and bred as I am, and with the not
ignoble tombs of my fathers before my eyes? For thee alone does it seem
to me that I could neglect my country, and if I could get leisure, force
myself to run away.[62]

LATIN LETTERS.--PLINY (62-114)

The most famous letters of the younger Pliny are those which
describe his country houses, that which gives account of his
uncle's death in the great eruption of Vesuvius, and his
correspondence with Trajan. But the first mentioned are
rather long and require a good deal of technical
annotation;[63] the second is to be found in many books; and
the letters which make up the third (except those concerning
Christianity, which are again to be found in many places)
are mostly short and on points of business merely. The one I
have chosen is extremely characteristic, in two respects, of
the author and of Roman ways generally. It shows Pliny's
good-nature and right feeling, but it shows also a certain
"priggishness" with which he has been specially and
personally charged, but which, to speak frankly, he shared
with a great many of his famous countrymen. Priggishness was
a