Letter 1057: We'd planned to linger in the countryside a while longer, but news of the homeland's troubles changed our plans.
We had resolved to linger a while longer at the very edges of things; but news of our tottering fatherland altered our plans, since amid the common misfortunes my own untroubled ease seemed to me dishonorable. Besides this, the administration of the sacred pontifical office demands attention to my person and the duty owed for the appointed month. For my spirit does not allow me, amid so great a negligence on the part of the priests, to suffice as a colleague on my own. This delegation of divine business was once a simple matter; now, for Romans to be absent from the altars is a form of self-advancement. How long will Etruria keep you? We complain already that there exists something that is preferred for so long to one's fellow citizens. Granted that the condition of the countryside is gentler, a man cannot rightly be defined as enjoying leisure when he fears for his own people in their absence. Farewell.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
Statueramus in extemis adhnc morari ; sed labantis patriae nnntius destinata mnta-
vit, cnm mihi in commnnibns malis decolor videretur securitas mea. ad hoc sacri
30 pontificalis administratio curam de me et officinm stati mensis exigit. neque enim
fert animns in tanta sacerdotnm neglegentia sufficere collegam. fuerit haec olim sim-
plex divinae rei delegatio : nunc aris deesse Romanos genus est ambiendi. vos Etrnria
qnousque retinebit? iam qnerimnr esse aliqnid, qnod tamdiu civibus praeferatnr. sit
Ucet mris statns mitior, non potest bene defmi otio, qni snis absentibns timet. vale.
est Af 8 octaoam aetatio V 11 nale om. V
boni (77) 15 tois V 17 prae ut] T0, pre id M, precor qoid 7^77) 18 brebis F, probas Af
angostiam (77)
mensis] VMPP, mentis 77 32 delatio 7\2> fort. Romanis 33 qoerimos V
Q. Atbslits Stmmaohvs. 4
26 SYMMACHI EPISTVLAE
m (XXXXVI) a. 376?
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern symmachus retranslated v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/details/qaureliisymmach00seecgoog
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