Back to letters indexLetter 5, Book I.6
C.PLINIUS CORNELIO TACITO SUO S.
Ridebis, et licet rideas. Ego ille quem nosti apros tres et quidem pulcherrimos cepi. "Ipse?" inquis. Ipse; non tamen ut omnino ab inertia mea et quiete discederem. Ad retia sedebam: erat in proximo non venabulum aut lancea, sed stilus et pugillares: meditabar aliquid enotabamque, ut, si manus vacuas, plenas tamen ceras reportarem. Non est quod contemnas hoc studendi genus. Mirum est ut animus agitatione motuque corporis excitetur. Iam undique silvae et solitudo ipsumque illud silentium quod venationi datur magna cogitationis incitamenta sunt. Proinde cum venabere, licebit auctore me ut panarium et lagunculam sic etiam pugillares feras. Experieris non Dianam magis montibus quam Minervam inerrare. Vale.
Date: not determinable [hunting may be connected with visit to Tuscany of letter 3 = I.4]. Hunting is mentioned only at his Tuscan Villa; fishing was preferred at Comum
Address: to Cornelius Tacitus; one of 11 letters to Tacitus. The letters to Tacitus in first six books are more formal than those in books 7-9. Perhaps the request of an account of the Elder Pliny's death and the eruption of Vesuvius [VI.16, 20] led to the literary friendship that begins in VII.20
Subject: hunting with notebooks: Wescott calls it an illustration of Pliny's "graceful pedantry."
ancient hunting is illustrated frequently in mosaics and sculpture [see the hunting lodge at Piazza Amerina in Sicily if you get the chance]
Hunting nets were very long and formed a trap into which the beasts were driven by beaters and then slaughtered.
Vocabulary and Notes:
Grammar points -- Review:
- formation of the future
- sequence of tenses
Project topics
- Series of letters to Tacitus
- Hunting in ancient world
- Roman writing materials
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