Letter 2025: You're certainly well-supplied with counsel and prepared for every situation — a man of your wisdom and cultivation...

Quintus Aurelius SymmachusVirius Nicomachus Flavianus|c. 378 AD|Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|From Rome|To Rome|AI-assisted
friendship

You overflow indeed with counsels, ready for the handling of every affair, and, schooled in the arts of wisdom, you have no need of an adviser; but it is right that you should suffer some part of my own night-labors too to be contributed to your private business. Therefore, if a fraternal pen has pressed upon either of us anything thought out beforehand, carry it through the more steadfastly, as a thing approved by two men; and if you read something still new to you, consider it your own discovery, since it is suggested by one who loves you. I have appended the headings of the matters, because to avoid tediousness I was unwilling to gather them up in a full letter. It will be yours to weigh in the balance what has been put to you. For I have so discharged my own duty as to reserve the judgment for you. Farewell.

[XXVI, around the year 385?]

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Abundas quidem consiliis in omnem rei usum paratus, et sapientiae cnltus artibus
monitore non indiges; sed fas est, ut fa meas quoque vigilias aliquid privatis ne- io
gotiis tuis conferri patiaris. quare si quid praemeditatum utrique nostrum stilus fra-
temus ingesserit, constantius exequere tamquam duobus probatum; si quid tibi adhuc
novum legeris, a te inventum puta, quod ab amante suggeritur. subieci capita rerum,
quia conplecti litteris fastidii fuga nolui. tuum erit insinuata trutinare. ita enim meo
officio functus sum, ut tibi iudicium reservarem. vale. 15

XXVI a. 385?

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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