Letter 2011: The silence between us has grown long enough that I feel the weight of it, and I write now partly to discharge the...

From: Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, senator and orator To: [Unknown correspondent] Date: ~370 AD Context: Symmachus, Book II, letter 11. A personal letter in the style that characterizes Symmachus's private correspondence: elegant, allusive, and preoccupied with the social rituals of the late Roman aristocracy. The silence between us has grown long enough that I feel the weight of it, and I write now partly to discharge the debt that silence creates between friends and partly because I have something to say that I have been reserving for a moment when the expression could do it justice. The season at the villa has been productive in the ways that seasons at the villa are meant to be productive — the reading, the walks in the garden, the conversations with the staff of people I keep there for exactly this purpose, who are somehow always more interesting in the country than they are in Rome. There is a quality of attention available in the country that the city does not permit. In the city one is always being observed, and observation changes thought; in the country one thinks for oneself, which is both more difficult and more satisfying. I am working on a series of panegyrics that I hope to have ready before the season ends. The first is nearly done; the second exists only in notes. The third I am not sure I have the material for yet — it requires information I am still gathering, through channels that are slower than I would like. Write to me. I am conscious that I ask more than I give in this department, but there it is. Yours as always, Symmachus