To Ferreolus [a former praetorian prefect of Gaul, now retired].
If I had considered the age, order, and standing of our friendship and kinship rather than your present circumstances, my pen would rightly have dedicated the first headings and the first greetings of this work to you. It would have traced your ancestral consular chairs and patrician insignia, not keeping silent about your triple prefectures, and it would not have denied your Syagrius [a member of the family] his deserved praises for his many changes of title. It would then have run quickly through your father and uncles — men by no means to be passed over in silence.
And however exhausted my pen might have been by the triumphal glories of your family, it would not have been so dulled by tracing the genealogies of your ancestors that it would grow blunt when it came to narrating your own achievements — for even if it had been dulled by describing your forebears' virtues, it would have been sharpened again by your own merits. But as I prepared to send you this public greeting, I considered not what you had been but what you are now.
I passed over your administration of Gaul in its most prosperous days. I passed over how, by the soundness of your arrangements alone, you endured Attila as the Rhine's enemy, Thorismod as the Rhone's guest, and Aetius as the Loire's liberator — and how, because of your remarkable prudence and foresight, the provincials lifted your chariot onto their willing shoulders with the loudest applause, since you governed Gaul so well that the exhausted taxpayer was relieved of the crushing burden of tribute. I passed over how you softened the ferocious king of the Goths with your honeyed, grave, witty, and unconventional eloquence — and that when Aetius could not budge him from the gates of Arles by battle, you removed him by lunch.
All this I passed over, hoping it would be more fitting to place your greeting among bishops than among senators — and judging it more just to number you among the servants of Christ than among the prefects of Valentinian. Nor should any hostile critic hold it against you that you are now counted among priests rather than politicians. For just as at a public banquet the last guest at the first table outranks the first guest at the second, so — beyond any dispute, in the judgment of all good men — the least of the devout is ranked higher than the greatest of the merely honored. Pray for us.
EPISTULA XII
Sidonius Ferreolo suo salutem.
1. Si amicitiae nostrae potius affinitatisque, quam personae tuae tempus ordinem statum cogitaremus, iure vobis in hoc opere, quantulumcumque est, primae titulorum rubricae, prima sermonum officia dedicarentur. isset per avitas tibi stilus noster curules, patricias nihilominus infulas enumeraturus; non tacuisset triplices praefecturas et Syagrio tuo pro totiens mutatis praeconibus praeconia non negasset; patrem inde patruosque minime silendos percucurrisset.
2. et quamlibet posset triumphalibus adoreis familiae tuae defetigari, non tamen eatenus explicandis antiquorum stemmatibus exinaniretur, ut ob hoc ad narrandam gloriam tuam fieret obtusior; qui, si etiam in scribendis maiorum tuorum virtutibus fuisset hebetatus, tuis denuo meritis cacuminaretur. sed salutationem tibi publicam destinaturus non quid fuisses, sed quid nunc potius esses consideravit.
3. praetermisit Gallias tibi administratas tunc, cum maxume incolumes erant. praetermisit Attilam Rheni hostem, Thorismodum Rhodani hospitem, Aetium Ligeris liberatorem sola te dispositionum salubritate tolerasse, propterque prudentiam tantam providentiamque currum tuum provinciales cum plausuum maximo accentu spontaneis subisse cervicibus, quia sic habenas Galliarum moderarere, ut possessor exhaustus tributario iugo relevaretur. praetermisit regem Gothiae ferocissimum inflexum affatu tuo melleo gravi, arguto inusitato, et ab Arelatensium portis quem Aetius non potuisset proelio te prandio removisse.
4. haec omnia praetermisit, sperans congruentius tuum salve pontificum quam senatorum iam nominibus adiungi; censuitque iustius fieri, si inter perfectos Christi quam si inter praefectos Valentiniani constituerere. neque te sacerdotibus potius admixtum vitio vertat malignus interpres; nam grandis ordinum ignorantia tenet hinc aliquid derogaturos, quia, sicuti cum epulum festivitas publica facit, prior est in prima mensa conviva postremus ei, qui primus fuerit in secunda, sic absque conflictatione praestantior secundum bonorum sententiam computatur honorato maximo minimus religiosus. ora pro nobis.
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To Ferreolus [a former praetorian prefect of Gaul, now retired].
If I had considered the age, order, and standing of our friendship and kinship rather than your present circumstances, my pen would rightly have dedicated the first headings and the first greetings of this work to you. It would have traced your ancestral consular chairs and patrician insignia, not keeping silent about your triple prefectures, and it would not have denied your Syagrius [a member of the family] his deserved praises for his many changes of title. It would then have run quickly through your father and uncles — men by no means to be passed over in silence.
And however exhausted my pen might have been by the triumphal glories of your family, it would not have been so dulled by tracing the genealogies of your ancestors that it would grow blunt when it came to narrating your own achievements — for even if it had been dulled by describing your forebears' virtues, it would have been sharpened again by your own merits. But as I prepared to send you this public greeting, I considered not what you had been but what you are now.
I passed over your administration of Gaul in its most prosperous days. I passed over how, by the soundness of your arrangements alone, you endured Attila as the Rhine's enemy, Thorismod as the Rhone's guest, and Aetius as the Loire's liberator — and how, because of your remarkable prudence and foresight, the provincials lifted your chariot onto their willing shoulders with the loudest applause, since you governed Gaul so well that the exhausted taxpayer was relieved of the crushing burden of tribute. I passed over how you softened the ferocious king of the Goths with your honeyed, grave, witty, and unconventional eloquence — and that when Aetius could not budge him from the gates of Arles by battle, you removed him by lunch.
All this I passed over, hoping it would be more fitting to place your greeting among bishops than among senators — and judging it more just to number you among the servants of Christ than among the prefects of Valentinian. Nor should any hostile critic hold it against you that you are now counted among priests rather than politicians. For just as at a public banquet the last guest at the first table outranks the first guest at the second, so — beyond any dispute, in the judgment of all good men — the least of the devout is ranked higher than the greatest of the merely honored. Pray for us.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.