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Pliny 3.16
170.
On Arria. Rome, 1st cent. A.D. (Pliny the Younger, Letters 3.16.
A.D. 97/107. [Mary R.] L[efkowitz])
Fannia was
granddaughter of the famous Arria the Elder, a Stoic, who committed
suicide when her husband, Caecina Paetus, was condemned to death in A.D.
42 by the emperor Tiberius. Her daughter, Arria the Younger, Fannia's
mother, stopped from doing as her mother had when her own husband, P.
Clodius Thrasea Paetus, was condemned in 66, under Nero. She was later
banished, by Domitian, but returned after his death and became a friend of
Pliny. In this letter, Pliny is writing about events that happened more
than a half century earlier.
Arria was by
no means a political innocent and would certainly have shared the blame
for her husband's role in the conspiracy. Her choice of a glorious death
over living in widowhood in greatly reduced circumstances (her husband's
property would have been confiscated), or possibly even exile, quickly
earned her a place in the pantheon of Roman matrons.
To Nepos.
I think I have noticed that the most celebrated words and
deeds of the most illustrious men and women are not always the greatest.
This opinion was confirmed yesterday when I spoke with Fannia. She is
the granddaughter of the Arria who gave her husband not just consolation
at his death but also an example. Fannia told me many things about her
grandmother not so well known as that story but no less significant. I
think you will be as impressed to read about them as I was when I heard
them.
Caecina Paetus, Arria's husband, and her son were
mortally ill at the same time. The son died. He was a youth of great
beauty and modest, and was dear to his parents not just because his was
their son. Arria took care of the funeral without her husband's even
knowing of the death. But that's not all. Whenever she entered his room,
she pretended that their son was alive and improving. If he asked about
the son's health, she answered that he had rested well or that he had a
good appetite. Then, when her tears were about to overflow, she would
leave, and give herself to sorrow. Then she would pull herself together
and go back in with a calm expression on her face, as if she had left
her mourning outside the door. It was noble indeed when she took the
dagger, plunged it into her breast, withdrew it, and uttered those
famous words, "Paetus, it doesn't hurt".But when she did that,
immortality was before her eyes. How much nobler it was, without the
prospect of glory and fame, to hide her grief and act like a mother
after her son had died.
Paetus was a partisan of Scribonianus in Illyria in the
rising against Claudius; he was brought as a prisoner to Rome when
Scribonianus was killed. When he was about to embark on the ship, Arria
begged the soldier: 'You will certainly allow a man of consular rank to
have a few slaves to look after his food and clothing. Let me come along
and I'll do their jobs myself.' But they refused. So she followed behind
the huge ship in a tiny fishing boat.
At the imperial palace she met the wife of Scribonianus
offering evidence to the prosecution, she said, 'Am I to listen to you
who could go on living after Scribonianus died in your arms?' From that
it is clear that her decision to die a noble death was not taken on the
spur of the moment.
Then, too, when her son-in-law Thrasea was trying to
dissuade her from her intent to die, he said, among other things, 'Would
you want your daughter to die with me if I were to die?' She replied, 'I
would, if she lived as long and as happily with you as I have with
Paetus.' That made everyone all the more anxious for her and she was
carefully watched. But she realized it and said, "You're wasting your
time. You can make me die painfully but you cannot stop me from dying.'
Having said which, she jumped up from her chair and ran to the wall,
upon which she banged her head and fell down unconscious. When she came
to she said, 'I told you I would do it the hard way if you stopped me
from doing it the easy way.'
Don't you think that these words are greater than the
famous "Paetus, it doesn't hurt [Paete, non dolet.]" to which they led? But that's what
everyone remembers, while no one mentions the other. Whence we can
infer, as I said at the beginning of this letter, that the most famous
acts are not necessarily the most noble. Farewell.
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