Thread by @OptimoPrincipi

1) How did the most wealthy and educated Romans spend their summer breaks? Let's relax with Pliny the Younger on a lazy, August day at one of his many country retreats:

"So you want to know how I spend the day during the summer in my Tuscan villa? I get up when I feel like it...

2) ..usually as the sun comes up, often before but never after. The shutters stay closed as the darkness and peace help my morning meditation. Freed from all external distraction, I am left to my own thoughts and imagination..."

3) "..If I concentrate well, anything I'm working on can be sorted out, chosen and corrected in my head. Then I call my secretary, open the shutters and dictate to him what I have knocked into shape. I send him away, call him back and send him away again!..."

4) "..At the fourth or fifth hour after sunrise, I take a walk on the terrace or portico, where I carry on thinking or dictating whatever I am working on. Then I go for a ride in my carriage - the change of scene revives me and helps me concentrate.."

5) "When I get back I have a rest, then another walk. Then I read out loud a Greek or Latin passage with proper enunciation, both for my voice and because I find it helps with my digestion! Another walk follows before I am oiled, do my exercises and have a bath.."

6) "Next I dine with my wife or with some some friends and we have a reading during the meal. Once we have eaten we listen to some music or a comedy. Then I take a walk with members of our household, several of whom are well educated so evenings pass with pleasant conversation."

7) "Sometimes I change my routine - if I have spent longer than usual studying then I go out riding on horseback, which acts as my exercise but saves time. Some of the day is given over to friends visiting from nearby towns, which can be a welcome interruption.."

8) "I also enjoy going hunting sometimes, but I always take my writing tablets with me so that even if I don't catch anything, I still come home with something!.."

9) "..and some of my time, though they would prefer more, is spent on my tenants, whose characteristic farmers' moans always lighten up our literary activities and civilised pastimes. Farewell."

Pliny the Younger, Letter to Fuscus (Letter IX.36)