Letter 8002: SIDONIUS TO HIS DEAR JOHANNES, GREETINGS

Sidonius to his dear Johannes, greetings. 1. I believed, most learned sir, that I would be committing a sin against scholarship if I delayed to pursue with praises the fact that you have delayed the destruction of letters — of which, now virtually buried, you are celebrated as the reviver, champion, and defender. Through you, under you as sole teacher amid this storm of wars, the Latin tongue has held its port throughout the Gauls, while arms have suffered shipwreck. 2. Therefore our contemporaries and posterity alike ought with universally fervent prayers to consecrate you as a second Demosthenes with statues (if it were permitted) and as a second Cicero with portrait busts — you by whose teaching those who are formed and instructed will retain, even in the bosom of an unconquered though foreign nation, the marks of their ancient birth. For now that the grades of rank have been removed, by which the highest used to be distinguished from the lowest, henceforth the only mark of nobility will be a knowledge of letters. 3. But beyond others, those of us whom your teaching especially binds — who are accustomed to write something and who labor so that future generations may have something to read — will at least have from your school and instruction a fitting crowd of readers. 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.