Pliny the Younger: letter 1.6: a scholar as hunter.

Pliny the Younger (61/62 – 113/115) gives us in his collection of letters a view of upper-class everyday life and also lots of other information. His most well-known letter is about the outburst of the Vesuvius at which his uncle Pliny the Elder lost his life trying to investigate this event. This is not the only letter he wrote to his friend, the historian Tacitus. In the following letter he tells Tacitus about his hunting experience: he has captured three boars! Yes, he, the man of study and letters! Well, actually he was just sitting near a hunting-net thinking and writing. He ends by advising Tacitus also to go to woods for refreshing the mind. This has to me a surprising touch of 19^th century romanticism: Caspar David Friedrich or John Constable going to the woods to paint or Franz Schubert taking his guitar to the Vienna Wood to compose his Lieder. Anyway, Pliny doesn’t take himself that serious as a hunter! But those three boars?! Of course he was not hunting alone, but with friends and lots of slaves and my guess is that his contribution to that hunting party was nothing at all….

Pliny, letter 1.6

C. PLINIUS CORNELIO TACITO SUO S.

1 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. 2 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. 3 Proinde cum venabere, licebit auctore me ut panarium et lagunculam sic etiam pugillares feras: experieris non Dianam magis montibus quam Minervam inerrare. Vale.

nosti = novisti

aper apri (m.): boar

non tamen ut omnino: without even at all

rete retes (n.): net

venabulum: hunting-spear

pugillares -ium (m. pl.): (small) writing-tablets

ut si manus vacuas, plenas tamen ceras reportarem.: best to translate reportarem twice: so that, if would return empty-handed, I would still bring back  etc.

cera: wax (writing tablets had a thin layer of wax to write on, so cera was used as a pars pro toto for pugillares)

Non est quod: there is no reason that

undique: from all sides

venatio –onis (f.): hunting

proinde: hence

venor: to hunt (venabere = venaberis)

auctore me: on my example, on my authority etc.

ut…sic etiam: not alone…but even

panarium: breadbasket

lagunculam: small/little flask/bottle; (for wine)

Diana: as the goddess of hunting she lives in the wild

inerro: to wander

Translation (in this edition it is letter iv!):

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2811/2811-h/2811-h.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_the_Younger

 

Roman Art: The Small Hunt, detail. The Wild Boar Hunt. Mosaic, 315-350 AD. Piazza Armerina, Roman Villa of Casale, Italy.       You see here a boar caught in a rete.

(picture from: http://www.superstock.com/stock-photos-images/1899-42641 )