Letter 5053: You have opened the door to correspondence late.

You have opened to me an opening for writing only late. For it was right that you should have begun the exchange of letters, since it is an inveterate custom that whoever departs for foreign parts should [...] by the alternation of correspondence [...] may furnish a [favorable] omen. Therefore, released now from the obligation of dutiful attention, I both now repay you the turn of a greeting and, for the future, if chance should present persons traveling this way, I promise the regular dispatch of friendly pages, so that it may be plain to you that it was not through any fault of mine, but through your own delay, that I have kept silent.

Aditum mihi ad scribendnm sero reserastis. vos enim oportuit inchoare libaniina 30 litteramm, quia inveterati moris est, ut qui ad peregrina discedit, alternandis epistulis 10 Sall. Catil. 4, 1. 3 animositas fecit V aprinos P ^ m. VM a///gere P 10 dedi/A//// P recuao] re//// P qneram V 11 seru/// P statnerat F probandis V, perblandns F 14 electio F 15 nel grecis F eipost alacri inser. V nan/i P, nandi V 19 naca/ione P litteris VM formiam V, formam M 23 antehoc dare V 1 m.y antehac dore V 2 m., hoc ante con- ferre M bna P l m. 24 cognitam V iam quamqnam] tgo^ iam qnam PV^ grauiter Af praestet auspicium. ergo absolutus observantiae religione et nunc vobis vicem salu- PVF tationis rependo et in reliquum, 8i fors obtulerit commeantes, adsiduitatem spondeo familiarium paginarum, ut vobis possit liquere, non in mea culpa sed in vestra mora fuisse, quod silui. 5 LXXI (LXVnil).