Translation:The Letters of Pliny the Younger/Letter II, IX

C.PLINIUS ATTIO CLEMENTI SUO S.

Regulus filius amisit, hoc uno malo indignus, quod nescio an malum putet. erat puer acris ingenii sed ambigui, qui tamen posset recta sectari, si patrem non referret. hunc Regulus emancipavit, ut heres matris exsisteret; mancipatum (ita vulgo ex moribus hominis loquebantur) foeda et insolita parentibus indulgentiae simulatione captabat. incredibile, sed Regulum cogita. amissum tamen luget insane. habebat puer mannulos multos et iunctos et solutos, habebat canes maiores minoresque, habebat luscinias psittacos merulas: omnes Regulus cura rogum trucidavit. nec dolor erat ille, sed ostentatio doloris. convenitur ad eum mira celebritate. cuncti detestantur oderunt, et quasi probent, quasi diligant, cursant frequentant, utque breviter quod sentio enuntiem, in Regulo demerendo Regulum imitantur. tenet se trans Tiberim in hortis, in quibus latissimum solum porticibus immensis, ripam statuis suis occupavit, ut est in summa avaritia sumptuosus, in summa infamia gloriosus. vexat ergo civitatem insaluberrimo tempore et, quod vexat, solacium putat. dicit se velle ducere uxorem, hoc quoque sicut alia perverse. audies brevi nuptias lugentis, nuptias senis; quorum alterum immaturum alterum serum est. unde hoc augerer quaeris? non quia adfirmat ipse, quo mendacius nihil est, sed quia certum est Regulum esse facturum, quidquid fieri non oportet. vale.

Pliny to Attius Clemens

Regulus has lost his son. Of this one misfortune he is not deserving, but I do not know whether he considers it a misfortune. The boy had an alert character but an unreliable one, which however he could have followed what is right, if he had not taken after his father. Regulus gave him legal independence, so that he might become his mother's heir; having sold him (thus those men who had common experience of the man's character call it) he began to curry favour with him using a pretence of indulgence shocking and unnatural in parents. Incredible, but consider, it was regulus. However he now mourns his lost son like a madman. The boy used to have gallic ponies both harnessed together and free, he used to have dogs, bigger and smaller, he used to have nightingales, parrots and blackbirds: Regulus slaughtered all around the funeral pyre. And that was not grief, but a show of grief. Now people gather round to him in an amazing throng. They all loathe and detest him, yet as if they approve, as if they esteem him, they flock and swarm. To express briefly what I think, in paying court to Regulus, they immitate Regulus. He keeps himself on the other side of the Tiber in Gardens, where he has covered the widest area with huge colonades and the riverbank with his statues, as in spite of his utmost greed he is extravagent, in spite of his utmost notoriety, he is ostentatious. Therefore he vexes the city at the most unhealthy time and, the fact that he vexes, he considers a consolation. He says that he would like to marry, and in this matter he behaves as perversley as he does in everything else. You will soon hear of the marriage of the mourner, the marriage of the old man; of these one is too soon, one is too late. From what can I predict this, you ask? Not because he declares it himself, no one is more of a lier than he, but because it is certain that Regulus will do whatever ought not to be done. Farewell.