Letter 1090: If the opportunity to write came often enough, my will would never fail to match it.

Quintus Aurelius SymmachusUnknown|c. 400 AD|Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|AI-assisted
travel mobility

If the opportunity to write were often at my disposal, the will would never be wanting to the duty. A plain and sure proof of this is that, as soon as a trustworthy occasion through our mutual friend first shone upon me, I gladly seized the office of writing. For I understood that my letter would be the more welcome if a courier more closely acquainted with you had delivered it to you, one who will faithfully present to you not only the letter but also an account of my own affairs.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Si facultas mihi ad scribendum saepe suppeteret^ voluntas numquam deesset of-
ficio. huius rei evidens certumque documentum est, quod ubi primum amici commiu-
nis fida adfnlsit occasio^ libens scribendi munus adripui. intellexi enim iucundiores 5
fore litteras meas, si has tibi familiarior tabellarius tradidisset, qui non solum epistu-
lam sed insinuationem quoque actuum meorum tibi fideliter exhibebit.

LXXXVIII (LXXXII) .

Revision history

  1. 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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