Letter 5051: The hunt for wild animals testifies to your full and robust health -- no weakling could manage such exertions.

That you enjoy full and vigorous health the tracking down of wild beasts bears witness. This, then, is for me the first cause of joy concerning you, that you support your health by rustic pleasures; the second degree of my gladness is that you have earned the merit of game taken in the hunt. For just as it is granted to the honor of the gods to consecrate the antlers of stags and to fasten boars' tusks upon their thresholds, so the first-fruits of the woodlands are dedicated to the cultivation of friends. Meanwhile I reject the opinion which reckons the business of hunting a servile duty. Let that be laid down by a writer who is to be approved only for his pen -- for the faults of his character do not allow that authority for the conducting of life be sought from him --; I prefer that you go about your country pursuits with Atilius and follow the sport of bodily strength, rather than be led off by fine words to the regimen of idleness. Surely this exertion befits your years. The reading of young men is to be marked off not by the gaming-board or the ball, nor by the Attic hoop and the Greek wrestling-schools, but by brisk fatigue and the joys of harmless boldness. To these same pursuits I will also exhort my own Symmachus, when he has grown up a little, although he is my only son. There will come a time one day when, weighed down by your years, you ought to renounce this activity. Then the care of hunting will rightly be held a servile office. For it is indeed a kind of servitude, if, when our strength is failing, we refuse to make use of that exemption from labors which old age grants us. [Book] 69 (67), [in the] year 397.

Snppetere vobis plenam roboris valetudinem feramm indago testatur. haec igitur mihi prima de vobis gaudii causa est, quod rusticis voluptatibus sanitatem iuvatis: secundus laetitiae meae gradus est venatu capta meruisse. nam ut honori numinum datur comua sacrare cervomm et aprugnos dentes liminibus adfigere, ita amicomm cul- 2 tui dedicantur libamenta silvamm. interea recuso sententiam, quae rem venaticam 10 servile ducit officium. statuerit hoc scriptor stilo tantum probandus — nam momm eius damna non sinunt, ut ab illo agundae vitae petatur auctoritas — ; vos malo cnm Atilio msticari et ludum virium sequi quam bonis verbis deduci ad institut^i desidiae. certe aetatibus vestris hic labor convenit. distinguenda est lectio iuvenum non alveolo aut pila nec trocho Attico et Graecis palaestris sed alacri fatigatione et innocentis auda- 15 3 ciae gaudiis. ad haec etiam meum Symmachum, cum subcreverit, quamquam unicum cohortabor. erit olim tempus, quo renuntiare annis graves hnic operi debeatis. tunc servile mnnus iure habebitur cura venandi. famulatus est enim qnidam, si cedentibns viribus recusemus uti labomm vacatione, quam nobis praestat senectus. LXVmi (LXVII) a. 397/ 20