Letter 2036: I too embrace the old-fashioned form in my letter headings, and I am quite surprised that a copyist's error crept in.

Quintus Aurelius SymmachusUnknown|c. 383 AD|Quintus Aurelius Symmachus
friendship
From: Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, Roman Senator
To: A friend (name lost)
Date: ~383 AD
Context: Symmachus explains that a copying error in his letter headings was accidental, and uses it as an excuse for a witty meditation on the tedium of formal correspondence.

I too embrace the old-fashioned form in my letter headings, and I am quite surprised that a copyist's error crept in. My usual practice is to place only the names at the top of my letters, and the scribe altered this simple custom by a newfangled addition. But it will be clear that this was done by accident rather than design if you recall that none of my earlier letters ever bore such a vulgar heading. Still, however this happened, I am glad something new turned up that freed me from the usual style of reply. For how long will we keep up the giving and returning of [Text breaks off in source.]

Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.

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