Pliny the Younger, Epistles 1.15
Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, simply known as Pliny the Younger (c. 60–112 CE), was a writer and politician during Rome’s ‘high empire’, beginning his political career under Emperor Domitian and reaching consulship during Emperor Trajan’s reign (Gibson 2020, xv-xvi). He’s most popular for his eyewitness account of his adoptive uncle’s death during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, which Younger Pliny shared in a correspondence he later published in a volume of his Epistles, or Letters. He published nine volumes of literary correspondence, called his Epistles, over the last two decades of his life, edited and revised by himself, providing us with “rare glimpses of the ‘domestic’ life of the Roman elite” (ibid., 4).
Translation
Listen up, you! You promised to come to my dinner, and never came? I say you must make up for this: you will repay the dinner’s cost to the last penny, and it was not cheap. I had served each guest a salad, three snails, two eggs, barley water with honeyed wine and snow—for the snow you will count also, indeed it’s among the expensive items which perish on the tray—olives, beetroots, gourds, onions, and another thousand items no less expensive.
You would’ve heard comedians or a reciter or a lute player or—so great is my kindness—all of them. But you preferred oysters and sows’ wombs and sea urchins and dancing girls from Gades at another’s house, I don’t know whose. You will give compensation, I won’t say how. Harshly you did this: you have refused a pleasure—I don’t know if to yourself, certainly myself, but yet, indeed, yourself. How much we could’ve enjoyed ourselves, could’ve laughed, could’ve entertained ourselves with literature! You can eat fancier at several houses, but nowhere more joyfully, with more abandon, with less reserve than at mine. In short, try my dinner, and afterward, if you’re not more capable of excusing yourself from other dinners, excuse yourself from mine forever. Goodbye.
Commentary
(alternate title: We Could’ve Had It All!)
Septicius Clarus: He was a man of equestrian rank within Pliny’s generation, who later rose to the praetorian prefecture—head of the emperor’s bodyguard, having authority over most military activity—in c. 199 under Hadrian’s reign (Sherwin-White 1966, 85; Gutsfield 2006). Also, he’s associated with Suetonius Tranquillus and is the addressee in three other letters from Pliny: I.1, VII.28, and VIII.1.
to the last penny: an as, referring to ‘one’, is the basic unit of weight, area, and length, and as a unit of weight, it and its divisions can represent “denominations of coinage” (Mlasowsky 2006). With it being one of the smallest common coin denominations, it is typically conflated with the American penny. Click here to see an as or dupondius lead coin ca. 129-130 CE, depicting Emperor Hadrian on the obverse and Liberalitas on the reverse (from the British Museum)
a salad: As seen in Martial’s Epigrams 10.48 and 11.52, lettuce (the lactuca I translate here as “a salad”) was known as a laxative and remedy for constipation.
barley-water: halica refers to hay or spelt, which was made into a broth as “an ancient form of barley-water” and was considered a poor man’s drink (Sherwin-White 1966, 121). The line here highlights Pliny’s ignorance of the lower class, with him mixing halica with mulsum “honey-wine,” which was a delicacy.
snow: Romans used snow as we would nowadays use ice (Westcott 1968, 144).
comedians or a reciter or a lute player: Roman diners sometimes provided entertainment, like how some restaurants and bars host musicians and comedians except in the private sphere with select guests. With mime and pantomime overtaking theater, recitations became the standard avenue for the educated class to hear classical plays (Sherwin-White 1966, 121). Comoedos recounted comedies; lectores recited poetry, oratory, or history; and lyristes played solo instruments.
oysters and sows’ wombs and sea urchins: all of these listed dishes are expensive luxuries in Rome, once again showcasing Pliny’s higher class. Echini “sea urchins” were used as remedies for several ailments like bladder stones and hair loss (Hünemörder 2006).
dancing girls from Gades: Gades Gemina, located at modern-day Cadiz, Spain, were twin cities: the Phoenician settlement on the island of Erythea and the Roman settlement on the longer island east of Erythea (Niemeyer and Barceló 2006). Click here for a map showing the location of Gades. Its dancers were famous, but Pliny here hosts a solo musician instead.
with more abandon, with less reserve: Sherwin-Wite notes that this comment could be “a political reference in incautius to freedom from spies and suspicions as in IV. 9. 6 and IX. 13. 10” (1966, 121-122).
Sources
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Hünemörder, Christian. 2006. “Sea urchin”. In Brill’s New Pauly Online. Brill. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e1106390
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