Calpurnia. The characters of Arria and Fannia are well known; they are
among the heroines of history. But in Pliny there are numerous
references to women whose names are not even known to us, but the terms
in which they are referred to prove what sweet, womanly lives they led.
For example, he writes to Geminus: "Our friend Macrinus has suffered a
grievous wound. He has lost his wife, who would have been regarded as a
model of all the virtues even if she had lived in the good old days. He
lived with her for thirty-nine years, without so much as a single
quarrel or disagreement." "Vixit cum hac triginta novem annis sine
jurgio, sine offensa. One is reminded of the fine line of Propertius,
in which Cornelia boasts of the blameless union of herself and her
husband, Paullus--

"Viximus insignes inter utramque facem."

This is no isolated example. One of the most pathetic letters is that
in which Pliny writes of the death of the younger daughter of his friend
Fundanus, a girl in her fifteenth year, who had already "the prudence of
age, the gravity of a matron, and all the maidenly modesty and sweetness
of a girl." Pliny tells us how it cut him to the quick to hear her
father give directions that the money he had meant to lay out on dresses
and pearls and jewels for her betrothal should be spent on incense,
unguents, and spices for her bier. What a different picture from
anything we find in Juvenal, who would fain have us believe that
Messalina was the type of the average Roman matron of his day!

Such were some of Pliny's friends. His distinguished position at the
Bar drew him a host of clients; his official status and his friendship
with Trajan gave him the entree into any society he liked. He was,
moreover, a man of considerable wealth, generous, even lavish, with his