Letter 1: You demand, my dear son, that my pen break through the boundary of the earlier letters and push onward into fresh...

Sidonius to his dear Firminus, greeting. 1. You demand, my lord and son, that, the boundary of the earlier letters having been broken through, our pen should run forward into further matters, not content to be confined within the privilege of the aforesaid number. You add also the reasons why this ninth book should be added to the eight earlier volumes: namely, because Gaius Secundus [Pliny the Younger], whose footsteps you declare us to follow in this work, marks off his epistolary work with the same number of titles. 2. What you bid is not without merit; although this very thing, which you so dutifully enjoin, stands forth as arduous and not advantageous to whatever small praise has already once been won: first, because the joining-on of a present increase is late to a little work already published before; next, because, before any judges whatsoever, unless we are mistaken, it is most unbecoming that, for a single subject-matter, a single beginning but a threefold set of epilogues should be found. 3. Likewise I do not know in what way it can be made pardonable that our talkativeness cannot endure to be restrained even after the announced ending: unless it be perhaps that the limit which can be set to pages cannot itself be set to friendships. Wherefore it befits you to be, as it were, on a kind of watchtower for the guarding of my reputation, and to make plain to the curious the reason for this deed, and to lay open to me, by a reply as frequent as possible, whatever each of the best men may think on this point. 4. Moreover, if, when I have been compelled to chatter, you yourself persist in keeping silent, it is not wholly unjust that you too should be punished in turn by the retaliation of our silence. Therefore do you first, do you above all, pardon the business which you impose and the service. We indeed, if any exemplar shall come to hand, will swiftly add it to the margins of the eighth book. 5. And yet your dear Apollinaris, who in other matters is [diligent], is certainly in this most negligent, since he is held by reading either when forced or of his own will only very slightly; yet, as far as it seems to me, who would not refuse to be joined to those fathers by whose zeal, prayer, and fear something praiseworthy in their sons, though it be hard to persuade, is harder still to bring about. Farewell.

EPISTULA I Sidonius Firmino suo salutem. 1. Exigis, domine fili, ut epistularum priorum limite irrupto stilus noster in ulteriora procurrat, numeri supradicti privilegio non contentus includi. addis et causas, quibus hic liber nonus octo superiorum voluminibus accrescat: eo quod Gaius Secundus, cuius nos orbitas sequi hoc opere pronuntias, paribus titulis opus epistulare determinet. 2. quae iubes non sunt improbabilia; quamquam et hoc ipsum, quod pie iniungis, arduum existat ac laudi quantulaecumque iam semel partae non opportunum, primum, quod opusculo prius edito praesentis augmenti sera coniunctio est; deinde, quod arbitros ante quoscumque, nisi fallimur, indecentissimum est materiae unius simplex principium, triplices epilogos inveniri. 3. pariter et nescio, qualiter fieri veniabile queat, quod coerceri nostra garrulitas nec post denuntiatum terminum sustinet: nisi quia forsitan qui modus potest paginis, non potest poni ipse amicitiis. quapropter esse te in quadam tuendae opinionis meae quasi specula decet curiosisque facti huiusce rationem manifestare quidque ad hoc sentiant optimi quique, rescripto quam frequentissimo mihi pandere. 4. porro autem si me garrire compulso ipse reticere perseveraveris, te quoque silentii nostri talione ad vicem plecti non periniurium est. itaque tu primus, tu maxime ignosce negotio quod imponis ac ministerio. nos vero, si quod exemplar manibus occurrerit, libri marginibus octavi celeriter addemus. 5. etsi Apollinaris tuus + cui in ceteris rebus est in hac certe neglegentissimus, quippe qui perexiguum lectione teneatur vel coactus vel voluntarius; quantum tamen mihi videtur, qui patribus his iungi non recusaverim, quorum studio voto timori laudabile aliquid in filiis, licet difficile persuadeatur, difficilius sufficit. vale.