Decimus Magnus Ausonius & Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

Your daughter's birthday was approaching, and the gifts you'd sent arrived at just the right moment.

You ask me for longer letters.

So where am I supposed to find an abundant supply of words when you've lent me nothing in the way of literary capital?

I'd nearly resigned myself to writing you a brief, empty letter — there was nothing worth reporting, and when...

[Only a fragment survives:] I am often urged by your warm correspondence to write about the literary studies we've...

Sicily's provincial assembly has sent Ambrosius, one of the leading men of the provincial bar, to our lords and...

Even if I could honor you with letters every single day, I still wouldn't feel I'd done my duty as the situation...

People who lack confidence in themselves seek letters of recommendation from me.

Our ancestors did well and wisely — as was their way in so many things — when they built the temples of Honor and...

...long days on the road, rough lodgings, the creeping cold, the shrinking daylight, and all the other hazards of...

I'm delighted to mean more to you than most people, since you're the kind of man who looks out for my interests...

I'm overflowing with joy that the new year will see you as consul.

After your long silence, I was hoping — no, expecting — a letter of generous length.

If you have a taste for natural history — the kind Pliny labored over — here are some volumes I happened to have on...

I'm taking advantage of the openness you've offered me.

You ask what I'm up to.

It's just like you — given our mutual devotion and the long history of our friendship — to insist that your own...

I have no time for the common run of philosophers who fake wisdom with pretentious clothing and a haughty air.

Here's Rusticus, barely freed from his business in Rome.

SYMMACHUS TO AUSONIUS:

They say snails, when they're thirsty and no dew falls from the sky, survive on their own moisture.

I'm doing exhausting work: I keep writing to someone who keeps not answering.

I've been idle for some time in the retreats of Campania and had no opportunity to write.

I interrupt your busy schedule with my steady stream of letters — partly because I enjoy this kind of exchange...

People are wrong to say Fortune has no judgment.

“Symmachus to Ausonius.”

“SYMMACHUS TO AUSONIUS Although the praise of sons in the mouths of their parents is for the most part true, yet somehow…”