1Have you ever seen anyone more timid or more abject than Marcus Regulus since Domitian's death? 1Under him he had committed crimes no lesser than under Nero, but better hidden. 1He began to fear that I was angry with him, and he was not mistaken: I was angry. 2He had fostered the danger of Arulenus Rusticus, and had exulted at his death; 2so much so that he recited and published a book in which he attacks Rusticus and even calls him 'the ape of the Stoics', adds 'branded with the scar of Vitellius' (you recognise Regulus' eloquence), and savages Herennius Senecio so intemperately indeed that Mettius Carus said to him, 'What have you to do with my dead?
3Do I trouble Crassus or Camerinus?' 3men whom he had accused under Nero. 4Regulus believed I had taken this bitterly, and so he had not invited me even when he recited the book. 4Besides, he remembered how mortally he had attacked me myself before the Centumviral court. 5I was appearing for Arrionilla, the wife of Timon, at the request of Arulenus Rusticus; 5Regulus was on the other side. 5On one part of the case I was relying on the opinion of Mettius Modestus, an excellent man: he was then in exile, banished by Domitian. 5Then, lo and behold, Regulus says, 'I ask you, Secundus, what you think of Modestus.' 5You see what danger there was, if I had answered 'well'; 5what disgrace, if 'badly'.
5I can say nothing else than that the gods stood by me then. 5'I shall answer,' I said, 'if the Centumvirs are going to judge this matter.' 5Again he: 'I ask what you think of Modestus.' 6A second time I: 'It used to be the custom for witnesses to be questioned about defendants, not about the condemned.' 6A third time he: 'I am no longer asking what you think of Modestus, but what you think of Modestus' loyalty.' 7'You ask what I think,' I said; 7'but I hold that it is not right even to ask about a man on whom sentence has been passed.' 7He fell silent; 7praise and congratulation followed me, because I had neither harmed my reputation by some answer that was perhaps useful but dishonourable, nor entangled myself in the snares of so treacherous a question.
8Now, therefore, terrified by his conscience, he seizes upon Caecilius Celer, then Fabius Justus; 8he asks them to reconcile me to him. 8Not content with that, he goes to Spurinna; 8to him he says humbly (for when he is afraid he is utterly abject): 'I beg you to see Pliny at his house in the morning, but really in the morning (for I cannot bear my anxiety any longer), and to make sure by any means you can that he is not angry with me.' 9I had woken up; 9a messenger came from Spurinna: 'I am coming to you.' 9'No, I shall come to you.' 9We met in the colonnade of Livia, as each of us was making for the other.
9He sets out Regulus' instructions and adds his own entreaties, sparingly, as befitted an excellent man pleading for one most unlike him. 9To him I said: 'You will decide yourself what you think should be reported back to Regulus. 10It is not right for you to be deceived by me. 10I am waiting for Mauricus' (he had not yet returned from exile): 'so I can give you no answer either way, since I shall do whatever he decides; 10for it is fitting that he should be the leader in this decision, and I his companion.' 11A few days later Regulus himself met me at the praetor's installation; 11having followed me there, he asks for a private word; 11he says he fears that something had stuck deep in my mind which he had once said in the Centumviral court, when replying to me and Satrius Rufus: 'Satrius Rufus, who has no rivalry with Cicero and who is content with the eloquence of our own age.' 12I replied that I now understood it had been said spitefully, since he himself admitted it, but that otherwise it could have been thought complimentary.
12'For I do have a rivalry with Cicero,' I said, 'and I am not content with the eloquence of our own age; 13for I think it most foolish not to set before oneself all the best things to imitate. 13But you who remember this case, why have you forgotten that one in which you asked me what I thought of the loyalty of Mettius Modestus?' 13He turned noticeably pale, although he is always pale, and stammered: 'I asked not to harm you, but to harm Modestus.' 13See the man's cruelty, who does not hide that he wanted to harm an exile. 14He added a splendid reason: 'He wrote,' he said, 'in a certain letter which was read out before Domitian: "Regulus, the most worthless of all two-legged creatures"'; 14which indeed Modestus had written most truly.
15This was roughly the end of our conversation; 15for I did not want to go further, so as to keep everything open for myself until Mauricus comes. 15Nor am I unaware that Regulus is 'hard to bring down'; 15for he is rich and well connected, courted by many and feared by more, which is often stronger than love. 16Yet it may happen that these supports are shaken and give way; 16for the favour enjoyed by bad men is as faithless as they are themselves. 16But, to say the same thing again, I am waiting for Mauricus. 16He is a serious and sensible man, schooled by much experience, and one who can foresee the future from the past.
16With him as my guide I shall have good reason either to attempt something or to keep quiet. 17I have written this to you because it was fair that, given our mutual affection, you should know not only all my deeds and words but also my plans. 17Farewell.