To Celsus, governor of Cilicia. (362)
Your office gave you the advantage of meeting the admirable Fortunatianus before I did. While we were still making predictions, each naming a different day for his likely arrival, you already had the man and were entertaining him. And he returned the favor, as one would expect, with a finer feast -- news about the emperor, including that the emperor loves you and has not forgotten me.
I have been accused of not writing -- both by Fortunatianus and earlier by the ambassadors (you know what I said to each). Yet I still cannot bring myself to condemn my own silence or be persuaded that I would have been better off having written. The charge that would have resulted then would have been harsher than the present one, and would not have let the defendant look the prosecutor in the eye.
Before, the sheer grandeur of the imperial office made me hesitate to write. Now the beauty of the emperor's own letters doubles my fear. For even if everything else is on our side, we lack the light that blazes in his writing. More than anyone I know, the man has blended power with clarity.
Your office gave you the advantage of meeting the admirable Fortunatianus before I did. While we were still making predictions, each naming a different day for his likely arrival, you already had the man and were entertaining him. And he returned the favor, as one would expect, with a finer feast -- news about the emperor, including that the emperor loves you and has not forgotten me.
I have been accused of not writing -- both by Fortunatianus and earlier by the ambassadors (you know what I said to each). Yet I still cannot bring myself to condemn my own silence or be persuaded that I would have been better off having written. The charge that would have resulted then would have been harsher than the present one, and would not have let the defendant look the prosecutor in the eye.
Before, the sheer grandeur of the imperial office made me hesitate to write. Now the beauty of the emperor's own letters doubles my fear. For even if everything else is on our side, we lack the light that blazes in his writing. More than anyone I know, the man has blended power with clarity.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.