Resultados25 letters/passages
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.02
To the Lord Bishop Graecus [Bishop of Marseille]. Here once again our Amantius — that gossipmonger of ours — returns to his Marseille, doubtless planning to bring home some profit from the city's markets, if only a favorable cargo-ship should arrive. Through him I would chatter at length in a lighter vein, if my heart …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.02
To Syagrius [a young Gallo-Roman aristocrat, great-grandson of a consul, living among the Burgundians]. You are the great-grandson of a consul — and through the male line, though that matters less to my present point. You are descended from a poet [Syagrius's ancestor, the consul, was also a literary man] whose statues …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.02
Sidonius To His Dear Ecdicius, greetings. Duo nunc pariter mala sustinent Arverni tui. 'quaenam?' inquis. praesentiam Seronati et absentiam tuam. Seronati, inquam: de cuius ut primum etiam nomine loquar, sic mihi videtur quasi praescia futurorum lusisse fortuna, sicuti ex adverso maiores nostri proelia, quibus nihil es …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.02
To Ecdicius. If ever there was a time when my people in the Auvergne [Clermont-Ferrand, the central city of the Arverni in south-central Gaul] needed you, it is now. Their love for you is overwhelming, and for many reasons. First, the land that gave you birth claims the deepest share of your affection by right. Second, …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 457 · score 0.02
Sidonius to his lord Bishop Faustus, greetings. 1. Your eloquence and your devotion alike maintain their accustomed standard, and for this reason we admire your speech all the more because you write so finely, and your affection because you write so willingly. For the present, however, with your permission first sought …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.02
When daylight revealed that their clumsy fraud had exposed their losses, they finally undertook proper funeral rites in the open — concealing their disaster by speed no better than they had concealed it by deception. They did not even give the bones a proper mound of turf; the unwashed dead received neither clean garme …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
For the sake of the hope of this glorious peace, we tore herbs from the cracks in the city walls for food, often poisoned by unfamiliar plants whose undistinguished leaves and green juices were gathered by hands as pale as famine itself. And for all these proofs of devotion, we are told that our people have been sacrif …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
4. He was being held in custody on the Capitoline, under the guard of his host Flavius Asellus, Count of the Sacred Largesses, who still revered in him the half-extinguished dignity of a prefecture so recently torn away. Meanwhile the envoys of the province of Gaul -- Tonantius Ferreolus, a former prefect and grandson …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
In the midst of all this water, we were thirsty, because nowhere was there a clean aqueduct, a settleable cistern, a flowing spring, or an unsullied well. 7. Moving on from there, we came to the Rubicon, which takes its name from the crimson color of its gravel, and which was once the boundary between the Cisalpine Gau …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
Their entire battle line withdrew at once to the ridge of a steep hill; though they had been pressing the siege, the moment they saw you they refused to form up for battle. Meanwhile, you cut down their best fighters — men whose courage, not cowardice, had placed them at the rear — and without losing a single one of yo …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
6. When Marcellian's conspiracy to seize the diadem was being hatched, Paeonius had set himself up as the standard-bearer for the noble young men in the faction -- still a newcomer even in old age -- until at last, thanks to his proven record of fortunate daring, the crack of a gaping interregnum shed a gleam of light …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
Sidonius to his dear Heronius, greetings. 1. After the wedding of the patrician Ricimer -- that is, after the resources of both empires had been squandered on the celebration -- serious public business was at last resumed, opening the door and field for the conduct of affairs. Meanwhile I was graciously received in the …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
Sidonius to his dear Vincentius, greetings. 1. The fate of Arvandus [the Praetorian Prefect of Gaul, tried for treason in Rome around 469 AD] distresses me, and I do not pretend otherwise. For this too redounds to the emperor's credit: that one may openly love even those condemned to death. I was a friend to the man, a …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
This color comes not from anger but from modesty. His shoulders are rounded, his upper arms powerful, his forearms hard, his hands broad. His chest juts out beyond a receding belly. A spine that sits lower than the ridge of his ribs divides the plain of his back. On either side, the flanks are knotted with prominent mu …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
After this proof of heavenly patronage, I was received in a lodging we had hired, and even now, writing these lines while reclining, I am giving a little time to rest. 10. I have not yet presented myself at the turbulent doors of the emperor and his court. For I arrived just in time for the wedding of the patrician Ric …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
Accordingly, in Avienus the rapid accumulation of honors was noted as pleasant, in Basilius their slow but steady growth as impressive. Both, to be sure, whenever they left their houses, were hemmed in by a crowd of clients going before, following behind, and pressing all around. But the hopes and ambitions of their re …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
Sidonius to his dear Heronius, greetings. 1. I received your letter while in Rome. You ask anxiously whether my journey is proceeding according to our joint plan, what sort of road I have traveled, which rivers I have seen that are famous in the songs of poets, which cities are renowned for the setting of their walls, …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
Sidonius to his friend Agricola. You have asked me many times — since Theodoric, King of the Goths [Theodoric II, r. 453-466], has a reputation among the peoples for his civilized conduct — to describe in a letter what he looks like and how he lives. I am happy to oblige, as far as the limits of a letter allow, and I c …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
He was strangled at home by the hands of his slaves — murdered in his bed with his breathing choked off and his throat bound tight, dying, if not the death of Lentulus or Jugurtha or Sejanus, then at least that of Scipio Numantinus [all Romans said to have been murdered in their beds]. The one consolation in this catas …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
Though the muttering chorus of the envious betrays its rage with doglike snarling, nothing is said openly — they fear the public verdict. They batter the stern, they shake the hull, they beat against the rounded flanks, and sinister tongues hiss and whistle around the mast. But I, my prow held straight by art, fearing …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
Books were everywhere in abundance — you could have imagined yourself among the shelves of a school, the tiers of an Athenaeum, or a bookseller's well-stocked stall. The volumes near the ladies' chairs were religious works; those by the gentlemen's couches were distinguished by the grand style of Latin eloquence. Thoug …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
4. Passing the mouths of the marshy Lambro, the blue Adda, the swift Adige, and the sluggish Mincio -- rivers that rise in the Ligurian and Euganean mountains -- I traveled briefly upstream and observed them in their very channels. Their banks and meadows were clothed everywhere with groves of oak and maple. Here the s …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
To Donidius. You ask why, having set out for Nimes some time ago, I am prolonging your suspense by my delayed return. I give you the reasons for my tardiness without delay — for what delights me will delight you too. I have been spending the most pleasurable time among the most beautiful estates and the most gracious h …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
To Simplicius and Apollinaris [Sidonius's relatives, probably his son and another kinsman]. Good God, how like a storm-tossed sea is the agitation of the human spirit — we are thrown into confusion by the squalls of adverse news as though by our own personal tempests! Recently my son and I were savoring the wit of Tere …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
They were called and admitted. The parties, as is customary, took their positions on opposite sides. The former prefects were offered the right to sit before the opening of the case. Arvandus, with his characteristic unlucky impudence, strode forward and virtually thrust himself into the very laps of the judges. Ferreo …