To Aper.
It is true that a man's identity comes first from his father's line, but we owe a great deal to our mothers too. We have no right to honor the seed less than the womb. But let the scientists sort out the question of origins — I have a more immediate point to make.
Your father was from the Aedui [the region around Autun in central Gaul], your mother from the Auvergne. You belong to the Aedui first, but not to them alone. Even Virgil makes this case: Pallas, who was Arcadian through his father but also Sabine through his mother, could have led the Etruscan armies against Mezentius as a foreigner — but because his mother gave him a share in their homeland too, he belonged to both peoples. So here is your precedent from the greatest of authorities: a man's motherland counts as part of his country. Unless you think poets lie even when they are telling history.
If the Auvergne claims at least a share of you, then hear their complaint patiently. Through the voice of one man, they pour out the feelings of many hearts. Imagine them saying to you: "What wrong have we done you, ungrateful man, that for so many years you have fled the soil that nursed you as though it were enemy territory? Here we cradled your infancy, here we formed your wailing limbs, here you were carried in the arms of your fellow citizens.
"Here was your grandfather Fronto — gentle with you, strict with himself — a model for the men we hold as models. Here was your grandmother Auspicia, who after your mother's death took on the duties of two women. Here was your aunt Frontina, holier than holy virgins, a girl of supreme self-denial and rigor, who feared God with such intensity that she herself was feared.
"Here the flourishing schools of grammar and rhetoric competed for the privilege of educating you. You came away well enough educated that you have no excuse for not loving the Auvergne at least for the sake of its literary culture.
"I say nothing of the particular beauty of this land — that ocean of fields where profitable waves of grain ripple without danger, where the harder a man works the less he shipwrecks. Gentle for travelers, fruitful for farmers, delightful for hunters. Mountain ridges crowned with pastures, hillsides covered in vineyards, lowlands dotted with villas, rocky heights with castles, shady valleys with game preserves, open land under cultivation, hollows with springs, cliffs with rivers — a land that has persuaded many a visitor to forget his own homeland.
"I say nothing of the city itself, which has always loved you so dearly that you ought to prefer its company of nobles above all else."
This is what one man says to you on behalf of all your fellow citizens — or at least the good ones. Since they ask for you with such honor and desire you with such love, you must see that you will gain more joy by granting their request than it costs you to make the journey. Farewell.
EPISTULA XXI
Sidonius Apro suo salutem.
1. Est quidem princeps in genere monstrando partis paternae praerogativa, sed tamen multum est, quod debemus et matribus. non enim a nobis aliquid exilius fas est honorari quod pondera illarum quam quod istorum semina sumus. sed originis nostrae definiendae materia vel ratio sit penes physicos: nos, unde haec ipsa praemisimus, persequamur.
2. Haeduus pater tibi, mater Arverna est. primis Haeduis deberis, ergo non solis, vel propter illud exemplum nostri Maronis, quo teste Pallas, sic habitus Arcas quod pariter et Samnis, in Mezentium movere potuisset ut peregrinus arma Etruscorum, ni mixtus matre Sabella partem quoque patriae inde traxisset. ecce habes magnum maximo auctore documentum, quod patriae pars computanda sit et regio materna, nisi poetas et cum ab historia non recedunt mentiri existimabis.
3. igitur Arverni si portionem tui saltim vicissim iure sibi vindicant, patienter admitte querimoniam desiderantum, qui tibi per unius oris officium non unius pectoris profudere secretum. quos palam et coram dicere puta: 'quid in te mali tantum, ingrate, commisimus, ut per tot annos quondam humum altricem nunc velut hosticum solum fugias? hic incunabula tua fovimus; hic vagientis infantiae lactantia membra formavimus; hic civicarum baiulabare pondus ulnarum.
4. hinc avus Fronto, blandus tibi sibi severus, qui exemplo esse potuisset his, quos habemus nos in exemplo; hinc avia Auspicia, quae tibi post tuae matris orbato decessum dependit una curam duarum. sed et matertera tua hinc, [et] hinc fuit sanctior sanctis Frontina virginibus, quam verebatur mater pater venerabatur, summae abstinentiae puella, summi rigoris, ac fide ingenti sic deum timens, ut ab hominibus metueretur. hic te imbuendum liberalibus disciplinis grammatici rhetorisque studia florentia monitu certante foverunt, unde tu non tam mediocriter institutus existi, ut tibi liceat Arvernos vel propter litteras non amare.
5. taceo territorii peculiarem iucunditatem; taceo illud aequor agrorum, in quo sine periculo quaestuosae fluctuant in segetibus undae, quod industrius quisque quo plus frequentat, hoc minus naufragat; viatoribus molle, fructuosum aratoribus, venatoribus voluptuosum; quod montium cingunt dorsa pascuis latera vinetis, terrena villis saxosa castellis, opaca lustris aperta culturis, concava fontibus abrupta fluminibus; quod denique huiusmodi est, ut semel visum advenis multis patriae oblivionem saepe persuadeat.
6. taceo civitatem ipsam tui semper sic amantissimam, ut sedulo nobilium contubernio praeferre nil debeas, cui tu manu iniecta feliciter raptus inserebare; sicque omnes praesentiae vestrae voluptas, quod tamen nullum satias cepit. iam quid istic de re familiari tua dicam, cuius hic status est, ut tuam expensam hoc sit facilius toleratura, quo crebrius? nam dominus agricola, si larem hic foveat, sic facit sumptum, quod auget et reditum.' haec unus tibi omnium civium, certe bonorum, voto petitu vice garrio; qui cum tanto honore te poscant, tanto amore desiderent, intellegi datur gaudii plus te, dum tribuis quod rogaris, assecuturum. vale.
◆
To Aper.
It is true that a man's identity comes first from his father's line, but we owe a great deal to our mothers too. We have no right to honor the seed less than the womb. But let the scientists sort out the question of origins — I have a more immediate point to make.
Your father was from the Aedui [the region around Autun in central Gaul], your mother from the Auvergne. You belong to the Aedui first, but not to them alone. Even Virgil makes this case: Pallas, who was Arcadian through his father but also Sabine through his mother, could have led the Etruscan armies against Mezentius as a foreigner — but because his mother gave him a share in their homeland too, he belonged to both peoples. So here is your precedent from the greatest of authorities: a man's motherland counts as part of his country. Unless you think poets lie even when they are telling history.
If the Auvergne claims at least a share of you, then hear their complaint patiently. Through the voice of one man, they pour out the feelings of many hearts. Imagine them saying to you: "What wrong have we done you, ungrateful man, that for so many years you have fled the soil that nursed you as though it were enemy territory? Here we cradled your infancy, here we formed your wailing limbs, here you were carried in the arms of your fellow citizens.
"Here was your grandfather Fronto — gentle with you, strict with himself — a model for the men we hold as models. Here was your grandmother Auspicia, who after your mother's death took on the duties of two women. Here was your aunt Frontina, holier than holy virgins, a girl of supreme self-denial and rigor, who feared God with such intensity that she herself was feared.
"Here the flourishing schools of grammar and rhetoric competed for the privilege of educating you. You came away well enough educated that you have no excuse for not loving the Auvergne at least for the sake of its literary culture.
"I say nothing of the particular beauty of this land — that ocean of fields where profitable waves of grain ripple without danger, where the harder a man works the less he shipwrecks. Gentle for travelers, fruitful for farmers, delightful for hunters. Mountain ridges crowned with pastures, hillsides covered in vineyards, lowlands dotted with villas, rocky heights with castles, shady valleys with game preserves, open land under cultivation, hollows with springs, cliffs with rivers — a land that has persuaded many a visitor to forget his own homeland.
"I say nothing of the city itself, which has always loved you so dearly that you ought to prefer its company of nobles above all else."
This is what one man says to you on behalf of all your fellow citizens — or at least the good ones. Since they ask for you with such honor and desire you with such love, you must see that you will gain more joy by granting their request than it costs you to make the journey. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.