Quintus Aurelius Symmachus → Rome and
Tradução moderna em inglês
Your servant delivered two letters from you, and I would be guilty of bad faith if I did not reply in kind. In both letters you promised to return to Rome -- if your years permit it. You have written the same thing many times before; I no longer put any stock in your pledges. Repeating a promise is just a rehearsal for breaking it.
I know that old men grow slow to take on effort, but since bad habits only deepen with time, I need to drag you here tomorrow -- before the passing days give you an even better excuse. Nestor [the legendary Greek elder from Homer's Iliad], in his third generation of life, never asked for an exemption from service, and even the aged Phoenix [tutor to Achilles] never excused Achilles from duty on account of his own advanced years. And truly, the distance between us is nothing. Spoletium [modern Spoleto, about 100 miles north of Rome] is practically a suburb. While you chew over your poems and compose epigrams inspired by groves and rivers, the pleasure of learned thoughts will make the journey painless.
Texto latino / grego
Binas ad me litteras pedisequus tuus detulit: fraudis arguerer, nisi totidem red- didissem. utrisque te rediturum Romam, si per annos liceat, spopondisti. saepe nu- 25 mero idem scripseras; nihil iam moror syngraphas tuas. iterare promissum fallaciae meditatio est. scio lentos ad capessendum laborem senes fieri, sed quia crescunt vitia cum tempore, in cra^ es mihi adtrahendns, priusquam iustiorem veniam faciat longior 2 dies. nullam certe Nestor tertio aevi sui saeculo militiae vacationem poposcit, nec Achilli excusavit aetatis suae frigus senex monitor. et certe haud multum itineris so interiacet. Spoletium suburbanitas nostra est. dum carmina tua ruminas, dum epi- grammata oblatis lucis aut amnibus facis, fallitur doctis cogitationibus sensus laboris. fort, propalam 3 enim om. F potest singulas F per se materia] ego, pars materia P, pars materiae F 4 stiUat F 5 sed iam mihl uenia indicta est F 7 descripsimus] Juretus, de eo scripsimus PF 8 misimus F 20 obtimorum P 1 m, aetatis suae F 30 achiUem F 32 oblatis — amnibus om. P, oblatis locis aut hominibus Mornmaen amnibus] ScioppiuB^ omnibus PDP facis] Pr^ componis F LIBER m. 75 xmi.