Letter 4032: ---

--- **From:** Ennodius, Deacon of Milan (later Bishop of Pavia) **To:** Eugenetes, a person of standing (identity uncertain; addressed as "Your Greatness") **Date:** ~505 AD **Context:** A pointed but elegantly veiled reproach — Eugenetes failed to send a reply when the courier Montanarius returned from him, and Ennodius calls in the epistolary debt with characteristic rhetorical flourish. --- I do not consider that the practice of attentive service can grow stale through the frequency of its performance, nor that the cultivation of diligence ought to be charged against the account of idle chatter. Perhaps those consumed by the duties of public office may lay claim to some excuse for their silence with the pen; but the man who is free of all such obligations earns no pardon if he permits himself to slacken in the assiduousness of writing. He who, when he has every opportunity, nevertheless fails to provide letters — those letters in which the very nourishment of affection resides — makes a plain and open confession of his negligence in love. It is an idle man's error when a mind well furnished with acquaintance allows itself to waste away, unfed, through the tongue's holiday, left starved of those conversations for which it hungers. But just as it befits us — who owe nothing to the preoccupations of this world — to tend faithfully to the sacred obligations of gratitude, so too, unless Your Greatness fulfills its proper part by dispatching a reply, you effectively condemn my worthy efforts by your silence. For if virtues are stripped of their rewards, who in the world would not be ashamed to have labored at all? There, then — I have stated, briefly as I reckon it, the position of both of us. And I confess that it sits ill with my heart that when Montanarius made his return journey, though I had entrusted him with pages written for you, I received nothing in return. This debt I now demand be repaid by the law of reciprocity — and repaid twofold, with shame added to the principal. Now farewell, my lord. Seeking news of your wellbeing, and announcing my own, I pray to God that, if he holds me in his memory, he may multiply all that is prosperous for you.

XXXII. ENNODIVS EVGENETI. Non aestimo rem obsequii frequentia posse rancescere nec culturam diligentiae uitio garrulitatis adscribi. suppetat forte 1 ai om. Sirm . depellet B 2 ita \' B letioia nos T 5 daebende L, debende in debite corr. T m. U 6 a] ad L 1 XXXI. 10 occa ̃ sionem Ll ut saepius 11 gaudia B pepererint P indiz B1 12 p non B p B iocanditas B\' 13 meroris BLTV colloquii Sirm. 15 ob] ab SWm. cf. Epist. II 20 16 letitia V 17 clandiBtina B 19 promito T 20 eti B exp. eorr . 21 pudeant L 28 diducere LV oale om. TV XXXII. 25 engeniti B 26 ranciscere B de abstinentia tabellarum excusatio illis, qui publicae utilitatis muniis occupantur: ueniam non meretur, si ab scriptionis adsiduitate temperet absolutus. liquido confitetur amoris neglegentiam qui cum possit epistulas, in quibus est affectionis pabulum, non ministrat: error otiosi est, si bene conperta mens per linguae ferias desideratis adtenuetur inpasta conloquiis. sed sicut nos religionem gratiae fouere conuenit curis saecularibus nil debentes, ita, nisi magnitudo uestra partibus suis adfuerit promulgatione responsi, damnatis probe facta reticendo, quia si tollantur uirtutibus praemia, quem laborasse non pudeat ? ecce, quantum aestimo, breui elocutus utrorumque propositum animo meo male esse confiteor, quod remeante Montanario, cum dedissem paginas, non recepi, quod debitum posco lege restitui, pudore geminari. nunc uale, mi domine, et uestram quaerens, propriam nuntians sospitatem deum precor, ut si mei memor est, prospera uestra multiplicet.