Letter 3014: Although Grenoble [Gratianopolis] keeps you busy, I have learned from reliable old friends that you still make time...

To Placidus. Although Grenoble [Gratianopolis] keeps you busy, I have learned from reliable old friends that you still make time for my little writings — prose and verse alike — and that you prefer them to the published volumes gathering dust on your shelves. I am glad to know my scribblings occupy your leisure hours. But I understand perfectly well that this pleasure comes not from the quality of the work but from your affection for the author. I owe you all the more for it: what you would deny to my style, you grant to our friendship. As for the rest of my critics, I have not yet decided what to make of them. The man who fancies himself most learned reads good writing and bad with roughly the same appetite — no more eager to praise what is excellent than to mock what is poor. And so the knowledge, the grandeur, the precision of the Latin language [Sidonius treats Latin literary culture itself as something endangered and precious] falls into contempt before the judgment of idlers. Their carelessness is the handmaid of their mockery: they want only to read what they can tear apart. They do not use literature — they abuse it. Farewell.

EPISTULA XIV Sidonius Placido suo salutem. 1. Quamquam te tua tenet Gratianopolis, comperi tamen hospitum veterum fido relatu, quod meas nugas sive confectas opere prosario seu poetarum stilo cantilenosas plus voluminum lectione dignere repositorum. gaudeo hoc ipso, quod recognovi chartulis occupari nostris otium tuum; sed probe intellego, quod moribus tuis hanc voluptatem non operis effectus excudit sed auctoris affectus, ideoque plus debeo, quia gloriae punctum, quod dictioni negares, das amicitiae. 2. de ceteris vero studii nostri derogatoribus quid ex asse pronuntiem necdum deliberavi. nam qui maxume doctus sibi videtur, dictionem sanam et insanam ferme appetitu pari revolvit, non amplius concupiscens erecta quae laudet quam despecta quae rideat. atque in hunc modum scientia pompa proprietas linguae Latinae iudiciis otiosorum maximo spretui est, quorum scurrilitati neglegentia comes hoc volens tantum legere, quod carpat, sic non utitur litteris, quod abutitur. vale. Apollinaris Sidonius The Miscellany The Latin Library The Classics Page