To Ecdicius.
If ever there was a time when my people in the Auvergne [Clermont-Ferrand, the central city of the Arverni in south-central Gaul] needed you, it is now. Their love for you is overwhelming, and for many reasons. First, the land that gave you birth claims the deepest share of your affection by right. Second, you are virtually the only man alive who brought his homeland no less longing before his birth than joy at his arrival — for the months of your mother's pregnancy were counted off by the united prayers of the citizens.
I pass over the ordinary bonds that are nonetheless powerful spurs to love: the turf you crawled on as a child, the meadows you first ran through, the rivers you first swam in, the forests you first hunted. I pass over your first ball games, your dice, your hawks and hounds, your horses and bows. I pass over the fact that, drawn by your youthful charm, scholars from every nation flocked here, and that the nobility, shedding the roughness of the Celtic tongue [Gaulish was still spoken in rural Auvergne], immersed itself in both oratory and poetry — all on your account.
But what has above all kindled the people's passion for you is this: having once demanded that they become Roman, you then forbade them to become barbarian. For the citizens can never forget how every age, rank, and sex watched you from the half-ruined ramparts as you rode across the open plain with barely eighteen horsemen and passed through several thousand Goths in broad daylight and in open ground — a feat that posterity will scarcely believe.
At the rumor of your name and the sight of your person, that battle-hardened army was struck with amazement. Their commanders on the enemy side could not comprehend how many they were and how few rode with you. Their entire battle line withdrew at once to the ridge of a steep hill; though they had been pressing the siege, the moment they saw you they refused to form up for battle. Meanwhile, you cut down their best fighters — men whose courage, not cowardice, had placed them at the rear — and without losing a single one of your companions, you held sole command of that vast open plain: a field where battle gave you fewer allies than dinner usually gives you guests.
After that, as you returned at leisure into the city, the rush of ceremony, applause, tears, and joy that met you is easier to imagine than to describe. In the packed halls of that spacious house, there was a glorious crush of celebration: some snatched kisses from the dust on your face, others caught the foam-flecked bridles, others unbuckled the hinged plates of your helmet as you emerged, others tangled themselves in unlacing your greaves, others counted the notches on your blunted sword, others measured with bruising fingers the punctured rings of your mail.
Though many clung to their loved ones in joy, the greatest surge of popular happiness was directed at you. You had entered an unarmed crowd, yet one so thick that even in armor you could not have fought your way free — and you bore their clumsy embraces with perfect grace. You had become, most loving interpreter of public affection, so pressed by the tumultuous hugs of the welcoming crowd that you owed the greater thanks to whoever had done you the greater injury.
I pass over your subsequent raising of a private force that resembled a public army, with modest help from your elders' resources, checking the enemy's unchecked raiding. I pass over the ambushes in which your squadrons slaughtered whole enemy columns, losing barely two or three men, inflicting such devastation that the enemy tried to hide the number of their dead by a stratagem more shameful than the losses themselves: those whom a short night had prevented them from burying were left decapitated, as though it were a lesser clue to leave a headless corpse than a recognizable one.
When daylight revealed that their clumsy fraud had exposed their losses, they finally undertook proper funeral rites in the open — concealing their disaster by speed no better than they had concealed it by deception. They did not even give the bones a proper mound of turf; the unwashed dead received neither clean garments nor tombs — fitting rites for men who died thus. Bodies were carted in from every direction on dripping wagons and, since you pressed them relentlessly, were hastily crammed into burning buildings and cremated under the collapsing timbers.
But why do I run on longer than I should? I did not presume to write the full history of your campaigns, only to refresh the memory of a part, so you might better trust the prayers of your people. Their anxious hopes will find no remedy more wholesome or swift than your return. So if our entreaties mean anything to you, sound the retreat toward home at once. Extract yourself quickly from the dangerous familiarity of kings — men whose company the wisest compare to fire: it illuminates those who keep a slight distance, but burns those who draw too close. Farewell.
EPISTULA III
Sidonius Ecdicio suo salutem.
1. Si quando, nunc maxume Arvernis meis desideraris, quibus dilectio tui immane dominatur, et quidem multiplicibus ex causis: primum quod summas in affectu partes iure sibi usurpat terra quae genuit; dein quod saeculo tuo solus ferme mortalium es, qui patriae non minus desiderii nasciturus quam gaudii natus feceris; astipulantur assertis materni quondam puerperii tempora, quae proficiente conceptu concordantibus civium votis numerabantur.
2. omitto illa communia quidem sed quae non mediocria caritatis incitamenta sunt, istius tibi reptatas caespitis glaebas. praetereo quod haec primum gramina incessu, flumina natatu, venatu nemora fregisti. omitto quod hic primum tibi pila pyrgus, accipiter canis, equus arcus ludo fuere. mitto istic ob gratiam pueritiae tuae undique gentium confluxisse studia litterarum tuaeque personae quondam debitum, quod sermonis Celtici squamam depositura nobilitas nunc oratorio stilo, nunc etiam Camenalibus modis imbuebatur.
3. illud in te affectum principaliter universitatis accendit, quod quos olim Latinos fieri exegeras barbaros deinceps esse vetuisti. non enim potest umquam civicis pectoribus elabi, quem te quantumque nuper omnis aetas ordo sexus e semirutis murorum aggeribus conspicabantur, cum interiectis aequoribus in adversum perambulatis et vix duodeviginti equitum sodalitate comitatus aliquot milia Gothorum non minus die quam campo medio, quod difficile sit posteritas creditura, transisti.
4. ad nominis tui rumorem personaeque conspectum exercitum exercitatissimum stupor obruit ita, ut prae admiratione nescirent duces partis inimicae, quam se multi quamque te pauci comitarentur. subducta est tota protinus acies in supercilium collis abrupti, quae cum prius applicata esset oppugnationi, te viso non est explicata congressui. interea tu caesis quibusque optimis, quos novissimos agmini non ignavia sed audacia fecerat, nullis tuorum certamine ex tanto desideratis solus planitie quam patentissima potiebare, cum tibi non daret tot pugna socios, quot solet mensa convivas.
5. hinc iam per otium in urbem reduci quid tibi obviam processerit officiorum plausuum, fletuum gaudiorum magis temptant vota conicere quam verba reserare. siquidem cernere erat refertis capacissimae domus atriis illam ipsam felicissimam stipati reditus tui ovationem, dum alii osculis pulverem tuum rapiunt, alii sanguine ac spumis pinguia frena suscipiunt, alii sellarum equestrium madefacta sudoribus fulcra resupinant, alii de concavo tibi cassidis exituro flexilium lamminarum vincla diffibulant, alii explicandis ocrearum nexibus implicantur, alii hebetatorum caede gladiorum latera dentata pernumerant, alii caesim atque punctim foraminatos circulos loricarum digitis livescentibus metiuntur.
6. hic licet multi complexibus tuorum tripudiantes adhaerescerent, in te maximus tamen laetitiae popularis impetus congerebatur; tandemque in turbam inermem quidem veneras sed de qua te nec armatus evolveres; ferebasque nimirum eleganter ineptias gratulantum et, dum inruentum tumultuoso diriperis amplexu, eo condicionis accesseras piissimus publici amoris interpres, ut necesse esset illi uberiorem referre te gratiam, qui tibi liberiorem fecisset iniuriam.
7. taceo deinceps collegisse te privatis viribus publici exercitus speciem parvis extrinsecus maiorum opibus adiutum et infrenes hostium ante discursus castigatis cohercuisse populatibus. taceo te aliquot superventibus cuneos mactasse turmales e numero tuorum vix binis ternisve post proelium desideratis et tantum calamitatis adversae parti inopinatis certaminibus inflictum, ut occulere caesorum numerositatem consilio deformiore meditarentur. siquidem quos humari nox succincta prohibuerat decervicatis liquere cadaveribus, tamquam minoris indicii foret quem nolles agnosci crinitum dimisisse truncatum.
8. qui postquam luce revoluta intellexerunt furtum ruinae suae crudeli vilitate patuisse, tum demum palam officiis exequialibus occupabantur, non magis cladem fraude quam fraudem festinatione celantes; sic tamen, quod nec ossa tumultuarii caespitis mole tumulabant, quibus nec elutis vestimenta nec vestitis sepulchra tribuebant, iuste sic mortuis talia iusta solventes. iacebant corpora undique locorum plaustris convecta rorantibus, quae, quoniam perculsis indesinenter incumberes, raptim succensis conclusa domiciliis culminum superlabentum rogalibus fragmentis funerabantur.
9. sed quid ego istaec iusto plusculum garrio, qui laborum tuorum non ex asse historiam texere sed pro parte memoriam facere praesumpsi, quo magis crederes votis tuorum, quorum expectationi aegrescenti nulla salubrius ociusque quam tui adventus remedia medicabuntur? igitur, si quid nostratium precatibus adquiescis, actutum in patriam receptui canere festina et assiduitatem tuam periculosae regum familiaritati celer exime, quorum consuetudinem expertissimus quisque flammarum naturae bene comparat, quae sicut paululum a se remota inluminant, ita satis sibi admota comburunt. vale.
◆
To Ecdicius.
If ever there was a time when my people in the Auvergne [Clermont-Ferrand, the central city of the Arverni in south-central Gaul] needed you, it is now. Their love for you is overwhelming, and for many reasons. First, the land that gave you birth claims the deepest share of your affection by right. Second, you are virtually the only man alive who brought his homeland no less longing before his birth than joy at his arrival — for the months of your mother's pregnancy were counted off by the united prayers of the citizens.
I pass over the ordinary bonds that are nonetheless powerful spurs to love: the turf you crawled on as a child, the meadows you first ran through, the rivers you first swam in, the forests you first hunted. I pass over your first ball games, your dice, your hawks and hounds, your horses and bows. I pass over the fact that, drawn by your youthful charm, scholars from every nation flocked here, and that the nobility, shedding the roughness of the Celtic tongue [Gaulish was still spoken in rural Auvergne], immersed itself in both oratory and poetry — all on your account.
But what has above all kindled the people's passion for you is this: having once demanded that they become Roman, you then forbade them to become barbarian. For the citizens can never forget how every age, rank, and sex watched you from the half-ruined ramparts as you rode across the open plain with barely eighteen horsemen and passed through several thousand Goths in broad daylight and in open ground — a feat that posterity will scarcely believe.
At the rumor of your name and the sight of your person, that battle-hardened army was struck with amazement. Their commanders on the enemy side could not comprehend how many they were and how few rode with you. Their entire battle line withdrew at once to the ridge of a steep hill; though they had been pressing the siege, the moment they saw you they refused to form up for battle. Meanwhile, you cut down their best fighters — men whose courage, not cowardice, had placed them at the rear — and without losing a single one of your companions, you held sole command of that vast open plain: a field where battle gave you fewer allies than dinner usually gives you guests.
After that, as you returned at leisure into the city, the rush of ceremony, applause, tears, and joy that met you is easier to imagine than to describe. In the packed halls of that spacious house, there was a glorious crush of celebration: some snatched kisses from the dust on your face, others caught the foam-flecked bridles, others unbuckled the hinged plates of your helmet as you emerged, others tangled themselves in unlacing your greaves, others counted the notches on your blunted sword, others measured with bruising fingers the punctured rings of your mail.
Though many clung to their loved ones in joy, the greatest surge of popular happiness was directed at you. You had entered an unarmed crowd, yet one so thick that even in armor you could not have fought your way free — and you bore their clumsy embraces with perfect grace. You had become, most loving interpreter of public affection, so pressed by the tumultuous hugs of the welcoming crowd that you owed the greater thanks to whoever had done you the greater injury.
I pass over your subsequent raising of a private force that resembled a public army, with modest help from your elders' resources, checking the enemy's unchecked raiding. I pass over the ambushes in which your squadrons slaughtered whole enemy columns, losing barely two or three men, inflicting such devastation that the enemy tried to hide the number of their dead by a stratagem more shameful than the losses themselves: those whom a short night had prevented them from burying were left decapitated, as though it were a lesser clue to leave a headless corpse than a recognizable one.
When daylight revealed that their clumsy fraud had exposed their losses, they finally undertook proper funeral rites in the open — concealing their disaster by speed no better than they had concealed it by deception. They did not even give the bones a proper mound of turf; the unwashed dead received neither clean garments nor tombs — fitting rites for men who died thus. Bodies were carted in from every direction on dripping wagons and, since you pressed them relentlessly, were hastily crammed into burning buildings and cremated under the collapsing timbers.
But why do I run on longer than I should? I did not presume to write the full history of your campaigns, only to refresh the memory of a part, so you might better trust the prayers of your people. Their anxious hopes will find no remedy more wholesome or swift than your return. So if our entreaties mean anything to you, sound the retreat toward home at once. Extract yourself quickly from the dangerous familiarity of kings — men whose company the wisest compare to fire: it illuminates those who keep a slight distance, but burns those who draw too close. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.