Letter 10012: The vintage this year was excellent, and the estate manager has expressed a confidence in the coming season's yield...

Quintus Aurelius SymmachusUnknown|c. 371 AD|Quintus Aurelius Symmachus
property economics
From: Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, senator and orator
To: [Unknown correspondent]
Date: ~371 AD
Context: Symmachus, Book X, letter 12; early personal correspondence from his career as a senator and man of letters before his prefecture.

The vintage this year was excellent, and the estate manager has expressed a confidence in the coming season's yield that I find, for once, persuasive.

I write briefly because the day has been long and my powers of composition have been exercised to their limits by obligations that do not carry my name. What remains is still genuine, even if it is not fresh.

The season passes; the city makes its demands; the literary projects that I meant to complete this year remain the projects I mean to complete next year. This is the condition of every serious person who also has serious responsibilities, and I accept it with the grace that long experience has made available.

Write to me when you can.

As always,
Symmachus

Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.

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