Quintus Aurelius Symmachus → Evsignium

the resources of expenditure, so that the lesser offices may be compelled to reveal the accounts of goods delivered or imported. The outcome will prove how much your diligence has provided for the state, when, by restraining new expenses, the sum of the remaining funds will have met the cost of completing the works.

To Eusignius.

I am filled with the greatest joy whenever you write, and especially so when there is no bitterness of complaint. But now your pen departs from its customary pleasantness. For it falsely charged a certain unfairness on the part of my kinsman, with whom you have no boundary dispute whatsoever. And so I suppressed the letter sent to him contrary to the law of friendship, lest justified anger offend one who holds you in affection. Now, his mother had a property-boundary dispute in Sicily with your agent, which was settled by the adjudication not of Venustus, as you write, but of another governor. Therefore, since the error of the informer has been exposed in both cases, it will remove the ill will directed at my kinsman. Consider then, with that singular modesty of yours, to which party satisfaction is owed. And I say nothing about his present circumstances, which ought to have restrained you in writing. Add to this that financial disputes should not be pressed to the point of damaging friendships. But why say more? Henceforth I hope to deserve a more peaceable tone from you and to gather the constancy of your long-standing regard for me, extended in affection also to my family.

To Q. S.

Frequent dealings have shown, and the clear proofs of your character attest, that examples of true friendship are to be found in you. For no one devotes a firmer constancy to the duties of personal intimacy, especially amid so great a burden of public responsibilities — which could blunt the zeal of another, were not brotherly affection to overcome the clamor of pressing obligations. Therefore I yield only to what propriety demands: I defer to your most excellent devotion and modestly acknowledge myself unequal to repaying the favor. Nor do I fear that your attentiveness will slacken because of such praise; rather I hope your goodwill, if anything can be added to its fullness, will become even more generous, because it is natural for good men to heap up their acts of kindness when they perceive that gratitude for them does not go to waste.

To Eusignius.

I do what common courtesy suggests: I join men of good character to your friendship. One of them is Felix, a man of honorable rank and military experience. If you bestow any affection upon him, it will redound to my gratitude.