TO HIS FRIEND, DECIANUS.

"What do I want," say you, "with a letter? Do I not show you sufficient indulgence by reading your epigrams? Besides, what have you to say in this letter, which you could not say in your verses? I see why tragic and comic writers admit a prologue,----because they are not allowed to speak for themselves. But epigrams have no need of a herald, and are contented with their own liberty of speech. In whatever page they please, they present an epistle. Do not, therefore, I pray, do a ridiculous thing, and clap a long dress on a person going to dance. Consider, too, whether you would choose a wand as a weapon against a retiarius. For myself, I take my seat amongst those who at once object to a contest so unequal" Indeed, Decianus, methinks you say what is just. Is it possible that you knew with what sort of an epistle, and how long a one, you were in danger of being occupied? Be it, then, as you desire. Whatever readers light upon this book, will owe it to you that they come to the first page without being tired.

I. TO HIS BOOK.

You could, I admit, have contained three hundred epigrams ; but who, my book, would have contained himself at you, and read you through? Yet learn, what are the advantages of a short book. The first is, that I waste less paper. The next, that the copier finishes it in one hour, and his services will not be confined only to my trifles. A third advantage is, that if any one happens to read you, you will not, though ever so bad, be detested. A person at table will begin to read you with his wine mixed, and finish you before the cup set before him begins to grow warm.¹ Do you imagine that by such brevity you are secure from all objection? Alas! to how many will you even thus be too long!

¹ His wine having been mixed with snow, or very cold water. See B. v. Ep. 64.

II. TO DOMITIAN.

Crete gave a great name, Africa a greater, to their conquerors, Metellus and Scipio; a still nobler name did Germany confer on you, Caesar, from the subjugation of the Rhine; and even as a boy you were worthy of that name. Your brother ² earned his triumphs over Idumaea, with the assistance of your father;³ the laurel which is given from the conquest of the Catti is all your own.

² Titus.
³ Vespasian.

III. TO SEXTUS.

You owe nothing, Sextus; you owe nothing, Sextus, I admit; for he only owes, Sextus, who can pay.

IV. ON AMMIANUS.

Oh, how caressing, Ammianus, are you with your mother! how caressing, Ammianus, is your mother with you! She calls you brother; you call her sister. Why do such strange titles of affection delight you? Why are you not content to be what you are? Do you think this an amusement and a jest? It is not so. A mother, who desires to be a sister, is not satisfied with being either mother or sister.

V. TO DECIANUS.

May I perish, Decianus, if I should not like to be with you all day, and all night! But there are two miles that separate us; and these become four, when I have to return. You are often not at home: even when you are, you are often denied; or you have leisure only for your law business or your private concerns. To see you, however, I have no objection to go two miles; but I have great objection to go four miles not to see you.

VI. TO SEVERUS.

Go now, and bid me publish my little books. When you have scarcely read a couple of pages, you look at the last page, Severus, and give long yawns. These are those epigrams which, when I was reciting them, you used to steal and write out in Vitellian tablets.¹ These are they which you used to carry one by one in your pockets to every feast, and every theatre. These are they, or (if there are any among them that you do not know) better. Of what use is it for me to make my book so thin, as not to be thicker than a mere roller,² if it takes you three days to read it through? Never were compositions intended to amuse more listlessly received You are fatigued, and lag so soon in your course; and when you ought to run to Bovillae, you want to unharness your cattle at the temple of the Muses. Go now, and bid me publish my little books.

¹ Small tablets, on which love letters and other light matters were written. See B. xiv. Ep. 8, and Dict. Antiqq. s. v. Tabulae)
² The umbilicus was the ornament at the end of the stick on which parchment was rolled.

VII. TO ATTALUS.

You declaim prettily, Attalus; you plead causes prettily: you write pretty histories, pretty verses. You compose pantomimes prettily, epigrams prettily; you are a pretty grammarian, a pretty astrologer. You sing prettily, Attalus, and you dance prettily: you are a pretty hand with the lyre, a pretty hand with the ball Since you do nothing well, and yet everything prettily, shall I tell you what you are? You are a great busybody.

VIII. TO THE READER.

If in these pages of mine, reader, anything seem to you too obscure, or written in too homely language, the fault is not mine: the copier did the mischief in his over-anxiety to give you the full amount of verses. But if you shall deem, not him, but me to be the culprit, then I shall believe you to have no understanding. "But still those verses of yours are bad." As if I would deny what is evident! They are bad but you do not write better.

IX. ON NAEVIA.

I wrote to Naevia; she has sent me no answer: She will not then grant me what I want. But I think that she had read what I wrote: she will then grant it.¹

¹ If she refused to receive my communications, I should despair of prevailing on her; but as she receives them, I hope at length to gain her favour.

X. TO POSTUMUS.

I commend you, Postumus, for kissing me with only half your lip: you may, however, if you please, withhold even the half of this half, Are you inclined to grant me a boon still greater, and even inexpressible? Keep this whole half entirely to yourself Postumus.

XI. TO RUFUS.

Though, Rufus, you see Selius with clouded brow; though you see him walking late in the porticoes; though you see his heavy look conceal some mournful feeling, his ugly nose nearly touching the earth, his right hand striking his breast, and tearing his hair, he is not bewailing the loss of a friend or brother. Both his sons are alive,----and I pray they may continue to live! Safe and sound is his wife too, and his furniture, and his slaves; nor has his farmer or his bailiff wasted any part of his property. What then is the cause of his sadness? He dines at home.

XII. TO POSTUMUS.

What am I to understand from the circumstance, that your kisses always smell of myrrh, and that you never have about you an odour other than unnatural? That you always smell so agreeably, Postumus, makes me suspect that you have something to conceal. He does not smell pleasantly, Postumus, who always smells pleasantly.¹

¹ See B. vi. Ep. 55. 

XIII. TO SEXTUS.

The judge wants money, and the counsel wants money. Pay your creditor, Sextus, I should advise.²

At money, money, judge and pleader aim:
The creditor's I deem the primal claim.
                                  Elphinston.

² Pay your creditor without litigation.

XIV. TO PAULINUS.

Nothing does Selius leave untried, nothing unattempted, whenever he sees that he must dine at home. He runs to the portico of Europa, and praises you, Paulinus, and your Achillean swiftness of foot, without ceasing. If Europa does nothing for him, he then goes to the enclosures, to see whether he can gain anything from the sons of Phillyra and Aeson.¹ Disappointed here likewise, he next haunts the Memphitic temple of Isis,² and seats himself near the seats of that sad heifer. From this place he goes to the palace suspended upon a hundred columns;³ thence to the monument of Pompeius' magnificence⁴ and his double grove. Nor does he disdain the baths of Fortunatus, or those of Faustus, or the confined and dark ones of Gryllus, or the windy ones of Lupus. As to the warm baths, he bathes in them again and again and again. After doing everything, but without the favour of heaven, he runs back, well washed, to the box-grove of the warm Europa, in case some belated friend may be taking his way there. By yourself, amorous Bull, and by your mistress, whom you carried off, do you, I implore, invite Selius to dinner.⁵

¹ Chiron, son of the nymph Phillyra; Jason, son of Aeson. The enclosures were the pens in which the citizens assembled to vote.
²  Isis was supposed by many to be the same as Io, who was changed into a heifer by Jupiter.
³  Centum pendentia tecta columnis, i. e. the portico of Agrippa. 
⁴ The portico of Pompeius.
⁵ Take Selius out of this life, Jupiter, that he may dine with you.

XV. TO HORMUS.

In offering to no one the cup from which you drink, you give a proof, Hormus, not of pride, but of kindness.¹

¹ Hormus had bad breath.

XVI. AGAINST ZOILUS.

Zoilus is ill: his gorgeous bed is the cause of this fever. If he were well, of what use would be these scarlet coverlets, this bed brought from the banks of the Nile, or this, steeped in the perfumes of Sidon? What but an illness displays such idle wealth? What have you to do with physicians? Dismiss all your Machaons. If you wish to get well, use my bed-clothes.

XVII. TO AMMIANUS.

At the very entrance of the Suburra, where hang the bloodstained whips of the torturers,¹ and where many a cobbler blocks up the Argiletum,² sits a female hair-cutter. But that female cutter, Ammianus, does not cut hair. "Does not cut hair?" you say. "What does she then?" She shaves.³

¹ Where malefactors were punished with scourging.
²  See B. i. Ep. 4.
³  She is a cunning shaver; a courtesan, who scrapes up money from the purses of young men. So the commentators interpret.

XVIII. TO MAXIMUS.

I court your dinner; alas! I am ashamed of doing so, but, Maximus, I court your dinner: you court some one else's; so we are equal in this matter. I come in the morning to pay my respects to you; I am told that you are gone already to pay your respects elsewhere: again we are equal. I myself am of your escort, and walk before my proud patron; you are of the escort of the other, your patron: again we are equal. It is bad enough to be a servant; but I object to be the servant of a servant. One who is a patron himself Maximus, should not have a patron.

XIX. TO ZOILUS.

Do you think, Zoilus, that I am made happy by an invitation to dinner? Happy by an invitation to dinner, Zoilus, and that dinner yours? That guest deserves to be a guest at the Aricine Hill,¹ who is made happy, Zoilus, by a dinner of yours.

¹ Aricia was a town on the Appian way, about twenty miles from Rome; a noted place for beggars, as appears from Juvenal Sat. iv.

XX. ON PAULUS.

Paulus buys verses: Paulus recites his own verses; and what you buy you may legally call your own.

XXI. TO POSTUMUS.

To some, Postumus, you give kisses, to some your right hand. "Which do you prefer?" you say, "choose." I prefer your hand.

XXII. TO APOLLO AND THE MUSES.

In what have I offended you, Apollo, and you nine Sisters? For, behold, the Muse of gaiety brings ill to her poet. Postumus before used to kiss me with half a lip. Now he has begun to kiss me with both lips.

XXIII. ON POSTUMUS.

I will not say, however closely you press me, who is the Postumus of my book. I will not say; for why should I give offence to these same kisses, which can so well avenge themselves?

XXIV. TO CANDIDUS.

"If harsh Fortune should overwhelm you with some terrible accusation; I will attend you in mourning habit, and more pale than a person accused. If she should order you to depart under condemnation from your native land, I will go, through seas, through mountains, your companion in exile." She gives you riches. "Are they the common property of us both?" Will you give me half? "It is a large sum." Candidus, will you give me anything? You will, then, share with me in misfortune only: but if heaven with smiling countenance shows you favour, you will enjoy your happiness, Candidus, alone.

XXV. TO GALLA.

Galla, you never grant, but always promise, favours to any one that asks them. If you always deceive, I beg you, Galla, for the future, to say "No."

XXVI. TO BITHYNICUS.

Because Naevia breathes painfully, and has a severe cough, and often sputters out saliva on your breast, do you imagine, Bithynicus, that your fortune is already made? You are mistaken; Naevia is flirting, not dying.

XXVII. ON SELIUS, THE DINNER-HUNTER.

Hark how Selius praises you, when spreading his nets for a dinner, whether you are reading your verses, or pleading at the bar. "Excellent! how sagacious! how ready! how clever! well done! how successful!" There, that is all I want; your supper is earned; be quiet.

XXVIII. TO SEXTILLIUS.

[Not translated in the Bohn.  Adapted from the Loeb]

Scoff much at him who calls you, Sextillus, a cinaedus and push out your middle finger.¹ Indeed you are no pederast, nor are you, Sextillus, an fornicator, nor have Vetustina's hot lips delight for you. None of those things are you, I confess, Sextillus : what then are you? I don't know ; but you know two things remain.

1. An insult, then as now, and for the same reason.

XXIX. TO RUFUS.

Rufus, do you see you person who is, always sitting on the front benches, whose sardonyxed hand glistens even at this distance; whose cloak has so often drunk deep of the Tyrian dye, and whose toga is made to surpass unspotted snow; him, whose well-oiled hair smells of all the essences from Marcellus' shop, and whose arms look sleek and polished, with not a hair unextracted? A latchet of later than yesterday's make sits upon his crescent-adorned leg, a scarlet shoe decks his foot unhurt by its pressure, and numerous patches cover his forehead like stars. Are you ignorant what the thing is? Remove the patches, and you will read his name.¹

¹ The patches being removed, the letters branded upon his forehead, which prove him to have been a slave, will appear. 

XXX. ON CAIUS.

I asked, by chance, a loan of twenty thousand sesterces,² which would have been no serious matter even as a present. He whom I asked was an old acquaintance in good circumstances, whose money-chest finds difficulty in imprisoning his overflowing hoards. "You will enrich yourself, was his reply, "if you will go to the bar." Give me, Caius, what I ask: I do not ask advice.

² About a hundred and sixty pounds of our money.

XXXI. TO MARIANUS.

I have often made love to Christina. Do you ask how she returns it? So well, that it is impossible for any one to go beyond her.

XXXII. TO PONTICUS.

I have a lawsuit on hand with Balbus: you, Ponticus, are unwilling to offend Balbus: I have one on hand with Licinus; he also is a person of importance. My neighbour Patrobas often trespasses on my little field: you are afraid to oppose a freedman of Caesar. Laronia refuses to restore my slave, and keeps him for herself: you tell me "she is childless, rich, old, a widow." It is idle, believe me, to hope for service from a friend who is himself in service. Let him be a free man, who wishes to be my master.

XXXIII. ON PHILAENIS.

Why do I not kiss you, Philaenis? you are bald. Why do I not kiss you, Philaenis? you are carrotty. Why do I not kiss you, Philaenis? you are one-eyed. He who kisses you, Philaenis, sins against nature.

XXXIV. TO GALLA.

In your love for Phileros, whom you have redeemed from slavery with your whole dower, you allow your three sons, Galla, to perish with hunger: so great indulgence do you show to your aged charms, no longer the due objects of even chaste pleasures. May the gods make you for ever the admirer of Phileros; you, a mother, than whom not even Pontia¹ is worse.

¹ A woman who is said to have poisoned her children; Juv. Sat vi. 637.

XXXV. TO PHOEBUS.

Since your legs, Phoebus, resemble the horns of the moon, you might bathe your feet in a cornucopia.

XXXVI. TO PANNICUS.

I would not have you curl your hair, nor yet would I have you throw it into disorder. Your skin I would have neither over-sleek nor neglected. Your beard should be neither that of an effeminate Asiatic, nor that of an accused person.³ I alike detest, Pannicus, one who is more, and one who is less than a man. Your legs and breast bristle with shaggy hair; but your mind, Pannicus, shows no signs of manliness.

³  Persons under accusation allowed their hair and beards to grow, and assumed a squalid garb, in order to excite compassion.

XXXVII. TO CAECILIANUS.

Whatever is placed upon table you sweep off right and left; breast of sow, chine of pork, a woodcock prepared for two guests, half a mullet, and a whole pike, the side of a lamprey, and the leg of a chicken, and a wood-pigeon dripping with its sauce. All these articles, wrapped up in your dripping napkin, are handed to your servant to carry home.¹ We sit by with jaws unemployed. If you have any feeling of shame, replace the dinner on the table: it is not for tomorrow, Caecilianus, that I invited you.

¹ Guests often brought their napkins with them; see B xii. Ep. 29; and such of them as desired to carry away portions of the viands from the table seem to have been allowed to do so.

XXXVIII. TO LINUS.

Do you ask what profit my Nomentan estate brings me, Linus? My estate brings me this profit, that I do not see you, Linus.

XXXIX. ON A PRESENT. 

You give your mistress scarlet and violet-coloured dresses. If you wish to give her suitable presents, send her a toga.¹

¹ The stola was the dress of the Roman matron. Courtesans and adulteresses were compelled by law to wear the toga, the attire of the other sex.

XL. ON TONGILIUS.

Tongilius is reported to be consumed with a semi-tertian fever. I know the cunning of the man; he has a hunger-and-thirst fever. He is now craftily spreading nets for fat thrushes, and throwing out a hook for mullet and pike. He wants strained Caecuban wine, and wine ripened in the year of Opimius; and dark Falernian which is stored in small flagons. All the doctors have ordered Tongilius to bathe. Fools! do they think it is a case of fever? It is disease of the throat.²

²  He pretends to be ill, that his friends may send him dainties.

XLI. TO MAXIMINA.

"Laugh if you are wise, girl, laugh," said, I believe, the poet of the Peligni.³ But he did not say this to all girls. Granting however, that he did say it to all girls, he did not say it to you: you are not a girl, Maximina, and you have but three teeth, and those plainly the colour of pitch and of boxwood. If, therefore, you believe your mirror and me, you should shrink from laughing as much as Spanius dreads the wind, Priscus a touch,¹ Fabulla, with chalked face, a rain-cloud, or Sabella, painted with white-lead, the sun. Put on a countenance more severe than the consort of Priam, and his eldest daughter-in-law. Avoid the pantomimes of the amusing Philistion, and gay feasts, and whatever by its wit and mirth distends the lips with broad laughter. It befits you to sit by the side of an afflicted mother, of a wife lamenting for her husband, or a sister for her affectionate brother, and to seek your recreation only with the tragic Muse. Take my advice, and weep if you art wise, girl, weep.

³  Ovid, born at Sulmo, a town of the Peligni.
¹ The one dreads that his hair, the other that his dress, should be disarranged.

XLII. TO ZOILUS.

Zoilus, why sully the bath by bathing in it your lower extremities? It could only be made more foul, Zoilus, by your plunging your head in it.

XLIII. TO CANDIDUS.

This is your community of goods among friends, Candidus; this is your community of goods which you talk about so grandiloquently day and night. You are clad in a toga washed in the waters of Lacedaemonian Galaesus, or one which Parma supplied from a select flock: but I, in one which the stuffed figure first exposed to the furious horns of the bull,¹ would be unwilling should be called his. The land of Cadmus has provided you with coats dyed by the descendants of Agenor; for my scarlet vestments you would not get three sesterces. Your Libyan tables are supported on feet of Indian ivory; my beechen table is propped up with a potsherd. Immense mullets, on your board, cover dishes of yellow gold; with me, my earthen platter is ruddy with a crawfish of the same colour as itself Your crowd of attendants might vie with the Idaean Ganymede: my hand serves me for an attendant. From such a mass of wealth you give nothing to an old and faithful companion, and do you say, Candidus, that the goods of friends are common?

¹ In the arena. See Public Shows, Ep. 19.

XLIV. ON SEXTUS.

Whether it be a slave that I have bought, or a new toga, or something worth perhaps three or four pounds, Sextus, that usurer, who, you all know, is an old acquaintance of mine, is immediately afraid lest I should ask a loan, and takes his measures accordingly; whispering to himself, but so that I may hear: "I owe Secundus seven thousand sesterces, Phoebus four, Philetus eleven; and there is not a farthing in my cash-box." Profound stratagem of my old acquaintance! It is hard to refuse me a favour, Sextus, when you are asked; how much harder, before you are asked.

XLV. TO GLYPTUS.

[Not translated in the Bohn. This is the Loeb version]

XLVI. ON NAEVOLUS.

Like as flowery Hybla is variegated with many a colour, when the Sicilian bees are laying waste the fleeting gifts of spring, so your presses shine with piles of cloaks, your wardrobe glistens with uncounted robes. And your white garments, which the land of Apulia produced from more than one flock, would clothe a whole tribe. You look, unmoved, upon your ill-clad friend in the winter months, shame on you! while you yourself fear the cold which pierces my ragged side, What sacrifice would it have been, wretched mortal, to deprive of a couple of habits----(what do you fear?) ----not yourself Naevolus, but the moths?

XLVII. TO GALLUS.

[Not translated in the Bohn. Adapted from the Loeb version]

Fly Gallus, I warn you from the crafty toils of the infamous adulteress, smoother though you are than conch-shells of Cytherea. Do you trust in your own charms? The husband is not a pederast: there are two things he does, and [neither is what you offer].

XLVIII. TO RUFUS.

A wine-merchant, a. butcher, a bath, a barber, a chessboard and men, and a few books (but give me the selection of them); one companion, not too unpolished; a tall servant, one who preserves his youthful bloom for a long time; a damsel beloved of my servant: secure me these things, Rufus, even though it were at Butunti,¹ and you may keep to yourself the baths of Nero.

¹ An obscure town of Apulia.

XLIX. ON TELESINA.

[Not translated in the Bohn.  Adapted from the Loeb translation]

I will not take Telesina to wife: why? she is an
adulteress. But Telesina is kindly to boys. I will.

You --- and drink water: 'tis no error, Lesbia.
Just where you need it, Lesbia, you take water.

You often have only a single denarius in your strong-box, Hyllus, and it is more worn than your ----; but it is neither the baker nor the innkeeper who will take it from you, but one who boasts of his oversized member.  Your unfortunate belly watches the feast of your ----; the former is always miserably hungry, the latter is swallowing.

WHAT your wife's suspicion of you is, Linus, and in what particular she wishes you to be more respectable, she has sufficiently proved by unmistakable signs, in setting as watcher over you a eunuch. Nothing is more sagacious and more spiteful than this lady.

You are unwilling that anyone should wash in the
bath before you, Cotilus. What reason is there but
this, that you be not touched by polluted waters ?
Be first then in the bath, but it is unavoidable that
your ---- is washed here before your head. 1

A THING is said to have been done at dinner last night, Postumus, which I should deprecate for who could approve such doings? it is said that your face was mauled, and by an assault even noisier than when Latinus smacks the beggarly cheeks of Panniculus; ¹ and what is more wonderful it is Caecilius whom as author of this outrage rumour proclaims all over the city. You say this was not done; do you wish me to believe this? I believe it. What if Caecilius has witnesses, Postumus ?