From Pliny The Younger to Calpurnia

Pliny was around forty years old when he married the fourteen-year-old Calpurnia. But the difference in their age did not become an obstacle in their love.  Pliny was a loving husband, and often praised his wife for her intelligence.  Grief clouded their lives when Calpurnia miscarried and Pliny couldn’t  get the heir he wanted, but their marriage remained blissful and full of love.

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c.100-113 AD

You will not believe what a longing for you possesses me.  The chief cause of this is my love; and then we have not grown used to be apart.  So it comes to pass that I lie awake a great part of the right, thinking of you; and that by day, when the hours return at which I was wont to visit you, my feet take me, as it is so truly said, to your chamber, but not finding you there I return, sick and sad at heart, like an excluded lover.  The only time that is free from these torments is when I am being worn out at the bar, and in the suits of my friends.  Judge you what must be my life when I find my repose in toil, my solace in wretchedness and anxiety. Farewell.