Resultados25 letters/passages
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.02
On good rolls he says nothing; on bad ones he laughs. In neither case does he lose his temper; in both he plays the philosopher. He disdains second chances — refuses both to fear them and to inflict them, ignoring opportunities offered and brushing past obstacles. You would think that even in dice he is handling weapon …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.02
Drunk on new wealth — and here you see their character even in small things — their very extravagance in spending betrays their inexperience in possessing. They cheerfully appear armed at dinner parties, in white at funerals, in furs at church, in black at weddings, and in beaver-skin cloaks at religious processions. N …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.02
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 0.02
When he rises, the palace guard begins its nighttime watches. Armed men take their posts at the entrances to the royal residence, where they will keep vigil through the first hours of sleep. But why should I go on? I promised you a brief portrait of the man, not an account of his kingdom. Besides, it is time to end thi …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.02
… and tell us quickly whether — with God's guidance — the quaestor Licinianus [an imperial envoy sent to negotiate] has opened any door of safety for our mutual anxiety. He is, they say, a person greater in arrival than in expectation, more impressive in person than in report, and remarkable for every gift of fortune and …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.02
… icus, Massa, Marcellus, Carus, Parthenius, Licinus, and Pallas [notorious Roman imperial freedmen and corrupt officials] would raise their hands in surrender at the comparison. These are the men who begrudge civilians their rest, soldiers their pay, couriers their expenses, merchants their markets, ambassadors their gi …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
But if verses devoid of ease and happiness cannot win approval, you too will find nothing pleasing on the page I append below. [The poem that follows describes the barbarian peoples gathered at the court of Euric in Bordeaux:] Why do you try to rouse the Muses now, Lampridius, glory of our poetry, and force me to compo …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 477 · score 0.01
Sidonius to his dear Leo, greetings. 1. The Magnificent Hesperius, jewel of friends and of letters, when he recently returned from the city of Toulouse, said that you had directed me to turn my attention from the now-completed books of letters to the pen of history. With the deepest reverence and the deepest affection, …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 457 · score 0.01
There, as you held forth midway between the rules of spiritual discourse and the conventions of the forum -- being most learned in both disciplines -- we crowded round you with senses uplifted and ears bent, finding you all too brief for our desire even as you had fully satisfied our judgment. 6. For these reasons I ha …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 475 · score 0.01
Sidonius to his dear Pastor, greetings. 1. The fact that yesterday you were absent from the council meeting of the city is taken by the better part of the assembly to have been done deliberately. They suspected that you were taking care lest the burden of the forthcoming embassy be laid upon your shoulders. I congratul …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
He thinks it childish to carry the bow in its case, and womanish to receive it already strung. So he takes it unstrung, and now with the tips of the bow pushed inward he bends and strings it, now he turns the knotted end downward and runs his finger along the slack string to find the loop. Then instantly he takes his a …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
This is the character that favorable report has brought us. Send word quickly if the reports match reality, so that those on perpetual guard duty — whom neither snowy days nor moonless, stormy nights persuade to sound the retreat from the walls — may catch their breath. For even when the barbarian withdraws to winter q …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
Sidonius to his lord, Bishop Julianus. Though we find ourselves separated by a somewhat greater distance than our shared affection would wish, the obstacle of the intervening journey would not have prevented my diligence from discharging its duty — were it not that, divided as we are between different kingdoms, we are …
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
But — and this is the chief comfort of the afflicted — our Lucumo [the Burgundian king, compared to the Etruscan king Tarquin] is tempered by his Tanaquil [the queen, compared to Tarquin's wise wife], who has been wisely cleaning her husband's ears of the poisonous filth poured in by whisperers, using well-timed and wi …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 457 · score 0.01
Therefore to compose letters of any polish is either untimely to ask of me or impudent for me to attempt; letters that are either witty in humor or elegant in style belong to the fortunate. Indeed, there is a certain barbarism of character in cheerful speech coming from an afflicted soul. 4. Rather, I beg you to endow …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
Set aside for a little while those widely acclaimed speeches you compose in the voice of the king [Euric, King of the Visigoths], by which that illustrious ruler now strikes terror into the hearts of peoples beyond the sea, now seals a victor's treaty on favorable terms with the trembling barbarians along the Waal [riv …
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 …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 477 · score 0.01
4. But my own condition is far different: for me, exile is a source of grief, not of information; old reading, not current knowledge. My religion is my profession, humility my aspiration, obscurity my mediocrity. My hope is placed not so much in the present as in the future. Sickness is my obstacle, and even now -- or …
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. 475 · score 0.01
Then there is your own house, whose steward, vineyard, harvest, olive grove, and even whose roof it would profit you to inspect, if only as you pass by. Therefore, sent by us, you also arrive at your own destination. For the circumstances of such a journey and our cause will be of such a nature and so opportune, unless …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 457 · score 0.01
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 0.01
We told him what we and our closest friends thought safe. We urged him to admit nothing as trivial if anything were demanded by his enemies, however slight their charge might seem -- that even this pretense of unconcern would be most perilous, making it easier for them to shake loose his careless confidence through cro …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
To Lampridius [a poet and rhetor of Bordeaux, friend of Sidonius]. When I first arrived in Bordeaux, your letter-carrier presented me with a letter full of nectar, flowers, and pearls. In it you scold my silence and demand some of my verses — those verses which, you say, pour from me in musical tones through the resona …
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 …