Letter 5030: People who are well-known and well-tested deserve a ready recommendation, so they may come to the attention of good...
People who are well-known and well-tested deserve a ready recommendation, so they may come to the attention of good men under an honorable endorsement. Theodulus, a young man of genuine integrity, enjoys the favor of many whose approval is itself a distinction.
But the difficulties of fortune that beset his life, he hopes, can be removed with your help. I ask, therefore, that you smile favorably on his wishes — lest my testimony be thought worthless, or his hopes be mocked by an empty outcome.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
Related Letters
Your letter reached me at Capua and gave me pure delight.
My spirits lift every time a letter from you arrives.
You have, I think, been led to impose a contribution of mares on these people by false information on the part of the inhabitants. What is going on is quite unfair. It cannot but be displeasing to your excellency, and is distressing to me on account of my intimate connection with the victims of the wrong.
So why did you sit by the Bosporus if you were only going to do the same thing in Cilicia?
Even if personal and friendly petition were lacking, the force of public justice could not fail to support so...