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Correspondence With The Emperor TrajanPart IX
Part IX
LXXXI
To the Emperor Trajan
You acted agreeably, Sir, to your usual prudence and foresight in
ordering the illustrious Calpurnius Macer to send a legionary centurion to
Byzantium: you will consider whether the city of Juliopolis^1 does not deserve
the same regard, which, though it is extremely small, sustains very great
burthens, and is so much the more exposed to injuries as it is less capable of
resisting them. Whatever benefits you shall confer upon the city will in
effect be advantageous to the whole country; for it is situated at the
entrance of Bithynia, and is the town through which all who travel into this
province generally pass.
[Footnote 1: Gordium, the old capital of Phrygia. It afterwards, in the reign
of the emperor Augustus, received the name of Juliopolis. (See Smith`s
Classical Dict.)]
LXXXII
Trajan to Pliny
The circumstances of the city of Byzantium are such, by the great
confluence of strangers to it, that I held it incumbent upon me, and
consistent with the customs of former reigns, to send thither a legionary
centurion`s guard to preserve the privileges of that state. But if we should
distinguish the city of Juliopolis in the same way, it will be introducing a
precedent for many others, whose claim to that favour will rise in proportion
to their want of strength. I have so much confidence, however, in your
administration as to believe you will omit no method of protecting them from
injuries. If any persons shall act contrary to the discipline I have enjoined,
let them be instantly corrected; or if they happen to be soldiers, and their
crimes should be too enormous for immediate chastisement, I would have them
sent to their officers, with an account of the particular misdemeanour you
shall find they have been guilty of; but if the delinquents should be on their
way to Rome, inform me by letter.
LXXXIII
To the Emperor Trajan
By a law of Pompey`s^1 concerning the Bithynians, it is enacted, Sir,
that no person shall be a magistrate, or be chosen into the senate, under the
age of thirty. By the same law it is declared that those who have exercised
the office of magistrate are qualified to be members of the senate. Subsequent
to this law, the emperor Augustus published an edict, by which it was ordained
that persons of the age of twenty-two should be capable of being
magistrates. The question, therefore, is whether those who have exercised the
functions of a magistrate before the age of thirty may be legally chosen into
the senate by the censors?^2 And if so, whether, by the same kind of
construction, they may be elected senators, at the age which entitles them to
be magistrates, though they should not actually have borne any office? A
custom which, it seems, has hitherto been observed, and is said to be
expedient, as it is rather better that persons of noble birth should be
admitted into the senate than those of plebeian rank. The censors elect having
desired my sentiments upon this point, I was of opinion that both by the law
of Pompey and the edict of Augustus those who had exercised the magistracy
before the age of thirty might be chosen into the senate; and for this reason,
because the edict allows the office of magistrate to be undertaken before
thirty; and the law declares that whoever has been a magistrate should be
eligible for the senate. But with respect to those who never discharged any
office in the state, though they were of the age required for that purpose, I
had some doubt: and therefore, Sir, I apply to you for your directions. I have
subjoined to this letter the heads of the law, together with the edict of
Augustus.
[Footnote 1: Pompey the Great, having subdued Mithridates, and by that means
greatly enlarged the Roman empire, passed several laws relating to the newly
conquered provinces, and, among others, that which is here mentioned. M.]
[Footnote 2: The right of electing senators did not originally belong to the
censors, who were only, as Cicero somewhere calls them, guardians of the
discipline and manners of the city; but in process of time they engrossed the
whole privilege of conferring that honour. M.]
LXXXIV
Trajan to Pliny
I agree with you, my dearest Secundus, in your construction, and am of
opinion that the law of Pompey is so far repealed by the edict of the emperor
Augustus that those persons who are not less than twenty-two years of age
may execute the office of magistrates, and, when they have, may be received
into the senate of their respective cities. But I think that they who are
under thirty years of age, and have not discharged the function of a
magistrate, cannot, upon pretence that in point of years they were competent
to the office, legally be elected into the senate of their several
communities.
LXXXV
To the Emperor Trajan
Whilst I was despatching some public affairs, Sir, at my apartments in
Prusa, at the foot of Olympus, with the intention of leaving that city the
same day, the magistrate Asclepiades informed me that Eumolpus had appealed to
me from a motion which Cocceianus Dion made in their senate. Dion, it seems,
having been appointed supervisor of a public building, desired that it might
be assigned^1 to the city in form. Eumolpus, who was counsel for Flavius
Archippus, insisted that Dion should first be required to deliver in his
accounts relating to this work, before it was assigned to the corporation;
suggesting that he had not acted in the manner he ought. He added, at the same
time, that in this building, in which your statue is erected, the bodies of
Dion`s wife and son are entombed,^2 and urged me to hear this cause in the
public court of judicature. Upon my at once assenting to his request, and
deferring my journey for that purpose, he desired a longer day in order to
prepare matters for hearing, and that I would try this cause in some other
city. I appointed the city of Nicea; where, when I had taken my seat, the same
Eumolpus, pretending not to be yet sufficiently instructed, moved that the
trial might be again put off: Dion, on the contrary, insisted it should be
heard. They debated this point very fully on both sides, and entered a little
into the merits of the cause; when, being of opinion that it was reasonable it
should be adjourned, and thinking it proper to consult with you in an affair
which was of consequence in point of precedent, I directed them to exhibit the
articles of their respective allegations in writing; for I was desirous you
should judge from their own representations of the state of the question
between them. Dion promised to comply with this direction, and Eumolpus also
assured me he would draw up a memorial of what he had to allege on the part of
the community. But he added that, being only concerned as advocate on behalf
of Archippus, whose instructions he had laid before me, he had no charge to
bring with respect to the sepulchres. Archippus, however, for whom Eumolpus
was counsel here, as at Prusa, assured me he would himself present a charge in
form upon this head. But neither Eumolpus nor Archippus (though I have waited
several days for that purpose) have yet performed their engagement: Dion
indeed has; and I have annexed his memorial to this letter. I have inspected
the buildings in question, where I find your statue is placed in a library;
and as to the edifice in which the bodies of Dion`s wife and son are said to
be deposited, it stands in the middle of a court, which is enclosed with a
colonnade. Deign, therefore, I entreat you, Sir, to direct my judgment in the
determination of this cause above all others, as it is a point to which the
public is greatly attentive, and necessarily so, since the fact is not only
acknowledged, but countenanced by many precedents.
[Footnote 1: This probably, was some act whereby the city was to ratify and
confirm the proceedings of Dion under the commission assigned to him.]
[Footnote 2: It was a notion which generally prevailed with the ancients, in
the Jewish as well as heathen world, that there was a pollution in the contact
of dead bodies, and this they extended to the very house in which the corpse
lay, and even to the uncovered vessels that stood in the same room. (Vid. Pot.
Antiq. v. ii. 181.) From some such opinion as this it is probable that the
circumstance here mentioned, of placing Trajan`s statue where these bodies
were deposited, was esteemed as a mark of disrespect to his person.]
LXXXVI
Trajan to Pliny
You well know, my dearest Secundus, that it is my standing maxim not to
create an awe of my person by severe and rigorous measures, and by construing
every slight offence into an act of treason; you had no reason, therefore, to
hesitate a moment upon the point concerning which you thought proper to
consult me. Without entering, therefore, into the merits of that question (to
which I would by no means give any attention, though there were ever so many
instances of the same kind), I recommend to your care the examination of
Dion`s accounts relating to the public works which he has finished; as it is a
case in which the interest of the city is concerned, and as Dion neither ought
nor, it seems, does refuse to submit to the examination.
LXXXVI
To the Emperor Trajan
The Niceans having, in the name of their community, conjured me, Sir, by
all my hopes and wishes for your prosperity and immortal glory (an adjuration
which is and ought to be most sacred to me), to present to you their petition,
I did not think myself at liberty to refuse them: I have therefore annexed it
to this letter.
LXXXVIII
Trajan to Pliny
The Niceans, I find, claim a right, by an edict of Augustus, to the
estate of every citizen who dies intestate. You will therefore summon the
several parties interested in this question, and, examining these pretensions,
with the assistance of the procurators Virdius Gemellinus, and Epimachus, my
freedman (having duly weighed every argument that shall be alleged against the
claim), determine as shall appear most equitable.
LXXXIX
To the Emperor Trajan
May this and many succeeding birthdays be attended, Sir, with the highest
felicity to you; and may you, in the midst of an uninterrupted course of
health and prosperity, be still adding to the increase of that immortal glory
which your virtues justly merit!
XC
Trajan to Pliny
Your wishes, my dearest Secundus, for my enjoyment of many happy
birthdays amidst the glory and prosperity of the republic were extremely
agreeable to me.
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