Letter 7010: Having performed the duty of a persistent creditor, I now call in the debt of a promise.

Ennodius to Florus and Decoratus. Having performed the office of a debt-collector toward securing repayment of his promise, I scarcely compelled the advocate to pay out what he owed to the advocates. A hard kind of profession, that I may forestall what must be said by us: I, a cleric, have bent myself to shamelessness. Judge for yourselves what sort of thing it is by which the most obstinate men are softened, and what he means who despoils plunderers. The pound of silver which our brother Epiphanius gave I have handed over to our brother Gaianus to be carried to you, the terms which I undertook nevertheless being still fixed in my keeping. It remains that, if I am to hand it over, you should so direct. My lords, conveying a most full greeting, I ask that, first, you deign to pray for me through the saints, and then that you render my services to your beloved lords with that humility with which you know that I desire to do so.

X. ENNODIVS FLORO ET DECORATO. Conpulsoris functus officio ad redhibitionem promissionis suae uix aduocatum coegi, ut quod aduocatis debebat exsolueret. genus durae professionis, ut a nobis dicenda praeueniam: ad uerecundiam clericus inclinaui. quale sit quo molliuntur obstinatissimi et quid sibi uelit qui raptores spoliat aestimate. argenti libram, quam frater Epiphanius dedit, fratri Gaiano ad uos perferendam tradidi, pactis tamen adhuc apud me quae suscepi constitutis. restat ut, si tradere debeam, designetis. domini mi, salutationem plenissimam dicens rogo, ut primum per sanctos pro me orare dignemini, deinde domnis amatoribus uestris obsequia mea sub illa qua me cupere scitis humilitate reddatis.