Pliny the Younger Gets Ghosted

 

Have you ever been ghosted? Someone you know, and you thought a friend, for some unknown reason, cuts you off. How messed up is that?

Pliny the Younger understands. Pliny the Younger was the only person who wrote an eye-witness account of the eruption of Vesuvius. A pyroclastic cloud killed his uncle, Pliny the Elder, after hanging around Pompeii too long. Being a noted naturalist, he wanted to record the volcanic eruption. Not a good idea.

Over at Open Culture they present Pliny the Younger's response to his supposed friend, Septicius, for exhibiting such boorish behavior (You can read the complete text or listen to a reading by Rob Delaney.) You can feel the Pliny's hurt when he says things like, "What joking and laughter and learning we would have enjoyed!" and threatens him with a lawsuit because of the cost of "honey wine cooled with snow (you must add the cost of snow as well, in fact the snow in particular, as it melts in the dish)."

Eventually, Pliny and Septicius make up. Pliny later writes a letter to his friend stating,

“You have constantly urged me to collect and publish the more highly finished of the letters that I may have written. I have made such a collection… I can only hope that you will not have cause to regret the advice you gave, and that I shall not repent having followed it.”

How would you (or one of your characters) respond to a friend who has ghosted you? If you wouldn't respond, why not? Would you be willing to resume your friendship? Why or why not? 

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