Resultados25 letters/passages
symmachus · c. 376 · score 0.02
My brother Entrechius, a man of distinction, sent his children away -- driven by a father's impatient love, with the city's shortages adding urgency to their departure. They set out without waiting for the proper season. Since sea travel is impossible right now, they'll stay briefly on the Campanian coast. But please s …
symmachus · c. 372 · score 0.02
The fortunes of our shared homeland have been reduced to such dire straits that the worst must be avoided. I want to send your brother back to you immediately. Please provide him with pack animals so that his haste can be properly supported. As for my daughter, she must not be subjected to the hardship of travel, as I …
symmachus · c. 373 · score 0.02
Whole cohorts of letters follow in the wake of your departure, and just as some people seek Athens for its schools or the gymnasiums of the Muses, so your travels attract an admiring crowd. And I don't imagine that a man blessed with the resources of high office finds it burdensome to host friends. So feed these schola …
symmachus · c. 386 · score 0.02
You were joking, I think, when you wrote that you'd been frightened by soldiers on the road -- a transparent excuse to keep us from following you deep into Campania. If even you, a man who spent years in military camps, felt some alarm, what would a soft civilian like me have suffered? But I won't let a pretended scare …
symmachus · c. 378 · score 0.02
With the blessing of the divine powers, my son Symmachus will assume the fasces [the ceremonial rods symbolizing... [The Latin manuscript tradition for this letter (Symmachus, Epistulae Book 8, Letter 25) is heavily corrupt or fragmentary. The above is a partial rendering based on the best available source.]
symmachus · c. 368 · score 0.02
Your letter was delivered to me while I was staying at the seventh milestone on the Via Ostiensis [the road from Rome to its port city of Ostia]. I immediately arranged through the distinguished vicarius [deputy prefect] to have the official records released at my request. But your servant left the city without my know …
symmachus · c. 373 · score 0.01
While you are busy relieving the hardships of the provincials, a heavier blow has fallen on the Apulians. Their grain is being requisitioned because of a groundless rumor of abundance — grain that will be stripped from the province without ever reaching the public supply in time. How can so great a shipment be prepared …
symmachus · c. 374 · score 0.01
I recently read your letter and could tell your spirits were low. I was deeply surprised that a sudden quarrel had erupted among people who are so close to each other. I've written to my lord and brother to urge him not to depart from his usual character. As for you, I ask — not just for my sake but for your own — that …
symmachus · c. 372 · score 0.01
...I entered Milan on the day before the Kalends of March [February 28], after a long and winding detour. I've paid my respects to the emperor, whose gracious words more than compensated for the hardship of the road. I'm postponing the real business until the arrival of the distinguished count [comes], who is expected …
symmachus · c. 366 · score 0.01
[To a friend] A man traveling to give thanks needs no letter of introduction, so my son Flavianus, relying on the benefits you've bestowed, spares his father that particular effort. What remains for me to write — and what his gratitude will confirm in person — is that no one is readier than you to restore men's fortune …
symmachus · c. 377 · score 0.01
I practically seized Simplicius, the imperial agent, at the very gate of the Via Flaminia, just to dictate these few essential words to you. Our boy Flavianus arrived in Rome on the last day of February. He'll soon set out for Asia under favorable auspices. I thought you should know right away, so that the good news wo …
symmachus · c. 367 · score 0.01
I pray the gods that the health I'm enjoying extends to you and your family as well. That opening, I think, covers what needs saying — a prayer for your well-being and a note of my own happiness. But you won't let my letters be short! So what shall fill a longer page? Where I've been and what I've been up to — since fr …
symmachus · c. 377 · score 0.01
...long days on the road, rough lodgings, the creeping cold, the shrinking daylight, and all the other hazards of the season — I avoided them all. If you judge me by my heart rather than my feet, I ask you to accept these excuses graciously. Perhaps we'll manage to win back your old goodwill. For now, it would be enoug …
symmachus · c. 368 · score 0.01
Your letter was delivered while I was at the seventh milestone on the Ostian road, and I immediately arranged through the distinguished vicarius to have the official records produced at my request. But your slave left town without consulting me — a typical piece of slave insolence. Whether you let that go unpunished is …
symmachus · c. 373 · score 0.01
I had every intention of making the journey, but the late summons left too little time to arrive. It seemed more decent to beg your pardon than to appear after the consul's ceremony was already finished. I have already sent the fullest explanations to our most merciful emperor and to all who wished me present — letters …
symmachus · c. 380 · score 0.01
Opportunities to send you greetings must be sought out when they're scarce and seized when they appear -- especially at a time when I'm worried about my daughter's health, which I believe has been further weakened by fasting. Put my fears to rest with news that she's improving. My own step is still unsteady, but if a r …
symmachus · c. 376 · score 0.01
I reap annual harvests of joy from your letters -- this is the return, these are the riches that Spain pays me. And so, when winter retreats and the sea lanes open to ships, I entrust your letters to the winds -- though this year they reached me often enough but always late. Autumn was already fading when your men touc …
symmachus · c. 368 · score 0.01
[This is a long letter whose text is substantially intermixed with critical apparatus and OCR artifacts. The legible portions include: a discussion of protocol in correspondence (who should write first when a friend is traveling), thanks for news of recovery from illness, praise of the recipient's career, and conventio …
symmachus · c. 393 · score 0.01
After I gave your assistant Gaudentius a letter reporting on my completed journey, an imperial agent brought me sacred letters matching our hopes and desires. The news they contained was encouraging, and I hasten to share it with you. May the gods continue to favor our endeavors. I look forward to your reply and to hea …
symmachus · c. 368 · score 0.01
Our trip abroad has been extended by a few extra days, since the rains have postponed the games. But I want you to bear this delay calmly, secure in the knowledge that I'm well, and to soothe with steady writing the longing for you that only grows stronger with each day's wait. Farewell.
symmachus · c. 384 · score 0.01
A greeting comes first -- it suits my wishes above all else and is the proper way to begin a letter. After that, my dear daughter, I'm entrusting your brother's birthday dinner to your capable management. Our man reports that the sailors have fled and left the coast deserted, which forced me to scale back the arrangeme …
symmachus · c. 368 · score 0.01
A matter dear to my heart requires your help: my son's games are approaching, and we need to secure noble horses of curule quality. To that end, I've sent trusted men to Spain with ample funds to purchase the finest teams, selected with the greatest care. But I'm worried that winter weather may block the horses' passag …
symmachus · c. 387 · score 0.01
We tried to keep the crocodiles -- the ones displayed at the theater show -- alive for your visit. But they refused to eat, and after fifty days of fasting had wasted them away, they were finished off in the arena during the second round of games, in the usual style of staged combat. Two are still breathing, and we're …
symmachus · c. 389 · score 0.01
I've already used up my writing time with the servant heading back to Campania, but I didn't want your saintly and honorable father Severus to leave without a letter from me -- partly to fulfill my duty of greeting and partly to share my inspection of the building project at your house. I was very pleased with both the …
symmachus · c. 371 · score 0.01
To a friend (~371 AD): You enjoy my letters -- so you say! That must be why you demand them so often and so eagerly. But I should not be branded lazy just because I cannot satisfy your insatiable appetite for my writing. Do you really think friendship's memory fades through silence? Do not judge hearts that way -- thei …