To Andronicus. (355)
I thought you had dropped your charge -- the one where you accuse me of writing too briefly. But you cling to this complaint like the worst kind of prosecutor, and you are not content to charge just the brevity itself: you have made it spawn a second accusation, claiming it proves my friendship for you has been shaken.
Come now, in the name of Zeus: if one of your bitterest enemies happened to send you a long letter, would you treat that length as proof that the hostility had ended? Even while he treated you badly in every other way? Or would you judge the man by his actions and regard the letter as mockery? For just as the length of a letter is not proof of friendship, so its brevity is not a sign of enmity.
You also blame me for not yet having reconciled you with that man -- and here too you are playing the prosecutor unfairly. I have not stopped speaking to him about it, and he has not let go of his anger. The fault is yours: not because you actually wronged him as was first believed, but because you neglected to clear up the suspicion. A man who ignored the matter then but apologizes now appears to have admitted guilt before and to be flattering the governor now.
I thought you had dropped your charge -- the one where you accuse me of writing too briefly. But you cling to this complaint like the worst kind of prosecutor, and you are not content to charge just the brevity itself: you have made it spawn a second accusation, claiming it proves my friendship for you has been shaken.
Come now, in the name of Zeus: if one of your bitterest enemies happened to send you a long letter, would you treat that length as proof that the hostility had ended? Even while he treated you badly in every other way? Or would you judge the man by his actions and regard the letter as mockery? For just as the length of a letter is not proof of friendship, so its brevity is not a sign of enmity.
You also blame me for not yet having reconciled you with that man -- and here too you are playing the prosecutor unfairly. I have not stopped speaking to him about it, and he has not let go of his anger. The fault is yours: not because you actually wronged him as was first believed, but because you neglected to clear up the suspicion. A man who ignored the matter then but apologizes now appears to have admitted guilt before and to be flattering the governor now.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.