Letter 21: Your uncle Victorius, a man as distinguished as he was universally learned, composed verses with supreme power among...
Sidonius to his dear Sacerdos and Justinus, greetings.
1. Your uncle Victorius, a man as distinguished as he was universally learned, composed verses with supreme power among his many accomplishments. The Muses have always been my care too, from boyhood. Now you come as heirs to your parent, by right as much as by desert. And so I, the poet's nearest neighbor by profession, yield to you who are his neighbors by blood. It is therefore most just that each of us should succeed the departed as he is connected to him. So keep the patrimony; give us the poems. Farewell.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
EPISTULA XXI
Sidonius Sacerdoti et Iustino suis salutem.
1. Victorius patruus vester, vir, ut egregius, sic undecumque doctissimus, cum cetera potenter, tum potentissime condidit versus. mihi quoque semper a parvo cura Musarum; nunc vos parenti venitis heredes, quam iure, tam merito: ilicet ego poetae proximus fio professione, vos semine. ergo iustissimum est, ut diem functo sic quisque nostrum succedat, ut iungitur. ideoque patrimonia tenete, date carmina. valete.
Apollinaris Sidonius
The Miscellany
The Latin Library
The Classics Page
Related Letters
The spite of the ancient foe has this way of its own, that in the case of those whom, through God resisting him, he cannot delude into the perpetration of evil deeds, he maims their reputation for a time by false reports. Seeing, then, that a sinister rumour about our brother and fellow bishop Leo had disseminated certain things inconsistent wi...
What my tongue speaks my conscience approves; since even before you had become engaged in the employments of any office of dignity, I have greatly loved and greatly respected you. For the very modesty of your deportment made certain incipient claims on affection even from one who had been resistant. And, when I heard that you had come to adminis...
Your uncle Victorius — as outstanding a man as he was thoroughly learned in every respect — composed many things...
You ask me, most eloquent sir, as you set out for your Sequani [the region around Besancon], to send you a certain...
You complain of both my delays and my silence.