DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62267#0050
40
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch. II
with an able teacher at its head *. In the next,
he provided a fund for the support of free chil-
dren ; built a temple to contain the busts of the
Emperors, which he had presented to his fellow
citizens f; adorned the temple with a bronze
statue of exquisite workmanship, dignum templo,
dignum Deo donum J; voluntarily resigned a
legacy in favour of Comum ; and, in short, seized
every occasion of manifesting his affection for
the town and for its inhabitants. Few characters
in truth appear more accomplished and more
amiable than that of Pliny the Younger. Inde-
fatigable both in the discharge of his duties and
in the prosecution of his studies, frugal in the
management and generous in the disposal of his
fortune, gentle in the private intercourse of so-
ciety, but firm and intrepid in his public capacity,
grateful and affectionate as a husband and friend,
just as a magistrate, and high-minded as a se-
nator, he seems to have possessed the whole circle
of virtues, and to have acted his part in all the
relations of life with grace and with propriety.
Nothing can be more pleasing than the picture
which he gives of his domestic occupations, and
few lessons are more instructive than the tran-
script which we find in his epistles, of his senti-
* iv. Ep, 13.
+, x. 24.
I iii. 6,
CLASSICAL TOUR
Ch. II
with an able teacher at its head *. In the next,
he provided a fund for the support of free chil-
dren ; built a temple to contain the busts of the
Emperors, which he had presented to his fellow
citizens f; adorned the temple with a bronze
statue of exquisite workmanship, dignum templo,
dignum Deo donum J; voluntarily resigned a
legacy in favour of Comum ; and, in short, seized
every occasion of manifesting his affection for
the town and for its inhabitants. Few characters
in truth appear more accomplished and more
amiable than that of Pliny the Younger. Inde-
fatigable both in the discharge of his duties and
in the prosecution of his studies, frugal in the
management and generous in the disposal of his
fortune, gentle in the private intercourse of so-
ciety, but firm and intrepid in his public capacity,
grateful and affectionate as a husband and friend,
just as a magistrate, and high-minded as a se-
nator, he seems to have possessed the whole circle
of virtues, and to have acted his part in all the
relations of life with grace and with propriety.
Nothing can be more pleasing than the picture
which he gives of his domestic occupations, and
few lessons are more instructive than the tran-
script which we find in his epistles, of his senti-
* iv. Ep, 13.
+, x. 24.
I iii. 6,