Letter 10030: The season in the city has been unusually demanding, with three official events in the same week and the usual...
The season in the city has been unusually demanding, with three official events in the same week and the usual complications; I look forward to the return to the villa.
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.
Related Letters
Your long-expected letter has arrived, and it makes me all the more prompt to return the favor of correspondence.
Quite a few young men have come from you to us, yet not a single letter from you.
You've been free of public duties for some time -- you should have returned in person rather than soothing your...
1. Although you know my mind well, you are perhaps not aware how much I long to enjoy your society. This great blessing, however, God will some day bestow on me.
Gold is changed and transformed into various forms at various times, being fashioned into many ornaments, and used by art for many purposes; yet it remains what it is — gold; and it is not the substance but the form which admits of change. So also, believing that your kindness will remain unchanged for your friends, although you are ever climbin...