Resultados25 letters/passages
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.02
… because he was elevated through the highest titles of office all the way to the imperial throne. But I can never agree with the proposition that men who stand on the perilous and slippery heights of political power are fortunate. For the hourly miseries endured in this life by those so-called happy men are beyond descr …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.02
And the illustrious Gratianensis added: "A wide field for satirists is opened by this quarrel." At this the emperor turned his head toward me: "I hear, Count Sidonius, that you write satire." "And I, my lord," I replied, "hear the same thing." Then he said, but laughing: "Spare us at least." "But I," I said, "spare mys …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.02
Forbidden by the weight of his cares from maintaining the measured routine of his former peace, he instantly abandoned the rules of his old way of life and realized that the business of an emperor and the leisure of a senator simply cannot coexist. Nor did the future disappoint his present gloom. For though he had sail …
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
… inst you can in no way be proved. At the same time, it is deeply unjust for the imperial judgment to lend its weight to private grudges, so that an innocent and carefree nobility is endangered on account of certain hatreds by an uncertain charge." When I bowed my head respectfully in thanks for this verdict, the faces …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.02
Beyond them lay Paeonius, and then Athenius, a man seasoned by the vicissitudes of lawsuits and politics. After him came Gratianensis, a man who should be kept well apart from any hint of infamy, who though he ranked below Severinus in honor surpassed him in favor. I reclined last, where the left margin of the emperor' …
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
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 Eutropius, greetings. 1. I have long wanted to write to you, but now I am especially impelled to do so, since I am traveling to the city with Christ's blessing. My chief or sole reason for writing is to summon you from the depths of your domestic tranquility to take up the duties of the Palatine se …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
God willing, such prayers will be blessed with favorable outcomes, and there will yet be time to remember these terrors amid the pleasures of peace — but the present dangers make us cautious, even if the future will make us secure. In the meantime, the bearer of this letter sighs over certain losses he claims were infl …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
I shall provide access by securing your admission, comfort by attending your recitation, and support by championing your cause. If you trust the voice of experience, much serious business will be advanced for you by this performance." I obeyed his instructions. He did not withdraw his support from the task he had impos …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
8. At this I marveled at the excessive pride of the one group and the excessive humility of the other, but refrained from asking the reasons. Then one of the factious crowd, planted for the purpose, came up to greet me. In the course of our conversation he said: "Do you see these people?" "I see them," I said, "and I w …
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
… 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 0.01
… 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
To Pastor. Your absence from yesterday's civic assembly was noticed. The better sort assumed you stayed away deliberately, to avoid having the burden of the upcoming embassy placed on your shoulders. I congratulate you on living in such a way that you have to fear being chosen for such duties. I admire your competence, …
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. 467 · score 0.01
Sought by all, no ambition touches you; the honor thrust upon you is a burden. You flee the clamor of Rome and Constantinople, the broken walls of arrow-scattering Titus [Jerusalem]. The walls of Alexandria and Antioch do not hold you; you scorn the Carthaginian roofs of Dido. You disdain the populous marshlands of Rav …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
Sidonius to his dear Campanianus, greetings. 1. I received your letter through the prefect of the grain supply, in which you recommend him to me, your new magistrate, as an old friend of yours. I owe great thanks to him and even greater thanks to you, for you have decided either to presume boldly on my friendship or to …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 463 · score 0.01
Sidonius to his lord Bishop Faustus, greetings. 1. You have complained, most holy sir, that we have both been silent too long. I acknowledge your side's diligence in this, but I do not recognize our side's guilt. For I was ordered long ago to chatter and did not fall silent, in the letters that preceded these. Yet when …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
Like Tantalus, the terrified man dared not open his mouth, lest the food that entered it exit through a wound. After many tears and desperate prayers, he was barely released — and he fled that royal luxury and those regal delicacies with the same speed that men usually pursue them. He returned to the desires of ordinar …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
Sidonius To The Lord Pope Graecus, greetings. Oneras, consummatissime pontificum, verecundiam meam, multifaria laude cumulando if quid stilo rusticante peraravero. atque would that reatu careat, quod apicum primore congressu quamquam circumscriptus, veritati resultantia tamen et diversa conexui; ignorantiae indeed meae …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
To the Lord Bishop Patiens [Bishop of Lyon, celebrated for his extraordinary generosity during the famines that followed Gothic devastation]. I believe that the man who truly lives for his own good is the one who lives for the good of others — who, moved by compassion for the calamities and poverty of the faithful, per …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
4. For just as nothing becomes a new bride less than a more beautiful bridesmaid, and just as if you dress in white, any dark person looks blacker still, so my work -- such as it is -- surrounded by the more powerful trumpets, is reduced to a worthless straw, which is pronounced the more contemptible for being placed i …
sidonius_apollinaris · c. 467 · score 0.01
To the Lord Bishop Lupus [Lupus of Troyes, one of the most revered bishops of fifth-century Gaul]. The man Gallus — now an honorable man, since he obeyed your command to return to his wife without delay — carries my respectful letter to you and brings back the results of yours. When the page you had sent was opened for …