Letter 8002: SIDONIUS TO HIS DEAR JOHANNES, GREETINGS

SIDONIUS TO HIS DEAR JOHANNES, GREETINGS 1. I believed myself to be committing a sin against learning, most expert of men, if I delayed to pursue with praises what you have delayed to abolish — letters — of which you are celebrated as reviver, champion, and defender, though they are in a sense already buried; and through you alone in these wartime tempests Gaul's lips have held Latin as a harbor, though their arms have suffered shipwreck. 2. Our contemporaries and our descendants owe it, therefore, unanimously and with burning prayers to consecrate you, if possible with statues, now with portraits — one as a second Demosthenes, the other as a second Cicero — you, the students formed and instructed under your teaching, who are already in the very bosom of an unconquered but alien people keeping the marks of their ancient birth. For now that the gradations of rank and dignity have been removed, by which the highest had been distinguished from the lowest, the sole mark of nobility henceforth will be the knowledge of letters. 3. But additional benefits of your teaching bind those of us who are not merely others, accustomed as we are to writing something and laboring to produce what those who come after may be able to read: at least from your school and mastership an appropriate crowd of readers will come forth for us. Farewell.

EPISTULA II Sidonius Iohanni suo salutem. 1. Credidi me, vir peritissime, nefas in studia committere, si distulissem prosequi laudibus quod aboleri tu litteras distulisti, quarum quodammodo iam sepultarum suscitator fautor assertor concelebraris, teque per Gallias uno magistro sub hac tempestate bellorum Latina tenuerunt ora portum, cum pertulerint arma naufragium. 2. debent igitur vel aequaevi vel posteri nostri universatim ferventibus votis alterum te ut Demosthenem, alterum ut Tullium nunc statuis, si liceat, consecrare, nunc imaginibus, qui te docente formati institutique iam sinu in medio sic gentis invictae, quod tamen alienae, natalium vetustorum signa retinebunt: nam iam remotis gradibus dignitatum, per quas solebat ultimo a quoque summus quisque discerni, solum erit posthac nobilitatis indicium litteras nosse. 3. nos vero ceteros supra doctrinae tuae beneficia constringunt, quibus aliquid scribere assuetis quodque venturi legere possint elaborantibus saltim de tua schola seu magisterio competens lectorum turba proveniet. vale.