On panthers…
“I am sorry the African panthers you had bought in such quantities did not turn up on the appointed day…”
On Christians…
“I have never been present at an examination of Christians. Consequently, I do not know the nature or the extent of the punishments usually meted out to them, nor the grounds for starting an investigation and how far it should be pressed…
For the moment this is the line I have taken with all persons brought before me on the charge of being Christians. I have asked them in person if they are Christians, and if they admit it, I repeat the question a second and third time, with a warning of the punishment awaiting them. If they persist, I order them to be led away for punishment…
They declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately among themselves in honor of Christ as if to a god…
This made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slave-women, whom they call deaconesses. I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths…”
One reply on “reading pliny the younger”
And nobody expects the Spanish Inquistion…..wrong context but I don’t care
Besides have you seen the criticism of Da Vinci Code for being a work of fiction. The main muck slingers being defenders of another book , the bible…oh irony it is so good