To Aquilinus.
I count it as a debt you owe me, most excellent of men — if you agree that the reasons for our friendship are as strong as the friendship itself. What I am claiming is an inheritance. I call as witnesses our grandfathers, Apollinaris and Rusticus, whose praiseworthy intimacy was forged by the similarity of their literary pursuits, their public honors, their dangers, and their convictions — united in condemning the fickleness of Constantine, the gullibility of Jovinus, and the treachery of Gerontius [three failed usurpers of the early fifth century], finding in each one a separate crime and in Dardanus all crimes combined.
In the next generation, our fathers — barely past boyhood and deep into young manhood — served together as tribunes and notaries under the emperor Honorius, traveling in such close companionship that being the sons of friends was the least of their reasons for getting along. Under the reign of the emperor Valentinian, one governed part of Gaul, the other the whole — yet their titles balanced each other in a brotherly way, since the one who held office first actually held the lesser rank.
Now it has come down to us — the grandsons — and nothing would be more unbecoming than for our ancestors' affection to appear to have grown stale on our account. Beyond this inherited claim, many circumstances push us toward a similar intimacy: our ages are as close as our homelands; the same school trained us, the same teacher instructed us; the same joys cheered us, the same discipline restrained us, the same education formed us.
For the rest, if God grants us years in which old age is already knocking, let us be — unless you refuse — two souls and one mind. Let us teach our children to love each other, to want and reject the same things. This is truly the prayer of our fathers, fulfilled beyond their hopes: that through a new Rusticus and a new Apollinaris, both the hearts and the names of our distinguished ancestors may be restored. Farewell.
EPISTULA IX
Sidonius Aquilino suo salutem.
1. In meo aere duco, vir omnium virtutum capacissime, si dignum tu quoque putas, ut quantas habemus amicitiarum causas, tantas habeamus ipsi amicitias. avitum est quod reposco; testes mihi in praesentiarum avi nostri super hoc negotio Apollinaris et Rusticus advocabuntur, quos laudabili familiaritate coniunxerat litterarum dignitatum, periculorum conscientiarum similitudo, cum in Constantino inconstantiam, in Iovino facilitatem, in Gerontio perfidiam, singula in singulis, omnia in Dardano crimina simul execrarentur.
2. aetate, quae media, patres nostri sub uno contubernio, vixdum a pueritia in totam adulescentiam evecti, principi Honorio tribuni notariique militavere tanta caritate peregrinantes, ut inter eos minima fuerit causa concordiae, quod filii amicorum commemorabantur, in principatu Valentiniani imperatoris unus Galliarum praefuit parti, alter soliditati; sed ita se quodam modo tituli amborum compensatione fraterna ponderaverunt, ut prior fuerit fascium tempore qui erat posterior dignitate.
3. ventum ad nos id est ventum est ad nepotes, quos nil decuerit plus cavere quam ne parentum antiquorumque nostrorum per nos forte videatur antiquata dilectio. ad hoc in similem familiaritatem praeter hereditariam praerogativam multifaria opportunitate compellimur; aetas utrique non minus iuncta quam patria; unus nos exercuit ludus, magister instituit; una nos laetitia dissolvit, severitas cohercuit, disciplina formavit.
4. de cetero, si deus annuit in annis iam senectutis initia pulsantibus, simus, nisi respuis, animae duae, animus unus, imbuamusque liberos invicem diligentes idem velle nolle, refugere sectari. hoc patrum vero iam supra vota, si per Rusticum Apollinaremque, proavorum praedicabilium tam reformentur corda quam nomina. vale.
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To Aquilinus.
I count it as a debt you owe me, most excellent of men — if you agree that the reasons for our friendship are as strong as the friendship itself. What I am claiming is an inheritance. I call as witnesses our grandfathers, Apollinaris and Rusticus, whose praiseworthy intimacy was forged by the similarity of their literary pursuits, their public honors, their dangers, and their convictions — united in condemning the fickleness of Constantine, the gullibility of Jovinus, and the treachery of Gerontius [three failed usurpers of the early fifth century], finding in each one a separate crime and in Dardanus all crimes combined.
In the next generation, our fathers — barely past boyhood and deep into young manhood — served together as tribunes and notaries under the emperor Honorius, traveling in such close companionship that being the sons of friends was the least of their reasons for getting along. Under the reign of the emperor Valentinian, one governed part of Gaul, the other the whole — yet their titles balanced each other in a brotherly way, since the one who held office first actually held the lesser rank.
Now it has come down to us — the grandsons — and nothing would be more unbecoming than for our ancestors' affection to appear to have grown stale on our account. Beyond this inherited claim, many circumstances push us toward a similar intimacy: our ages are as close as our homelands; the same school trained us, the same teacher instructed us; the same joys cheered us, the same discipline restrained us, the same education formed us.
For the rest, if God grants us years in which old age is already knocking, let us be — unless you refuse — two souls and one mind. Let us teach our children to love each other, to want and reject the same things. This is truly the prayer of our fathers, fulfilled beyond their hopes: that through a new Rusticus and a new Apollinaris, both the hearts and the names of our distinguished ancestors may be restored. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.