Letter 6067: You wrote that you'd taken a purgative to clear your bowels, hoping it would bring down the inflammation in your...
You wrote that you'd taken a purgative to clear your bowels, hoping it would bring down the inflammation in your eyes along with the rest of the toxins. I need to know: did the treatment work? Or did it turn out you also needed bloodletting to relieve the veins?
My affection demands equal frankness from you about my daughter's health, so that once I hear good news, I can set down the sharp edge of my worry. I'm distressed about other things too -- the turmoil in the city, mainly driven by the demand for household slaves to be conscripted for military service. We're fighting back with repeated petitions, buying time through appeals. The shameful bidding has already reached five pounds of silver per head, and I'm afraid that fleeing one burden will strip us of both.
The prefect was judged too sluggish in handling the affair and has been replaced by Lampadius, whose character people trust to accomplish the impossible. But right now, please ease my greater anxiety -- the one that concerns you. I'm still in torment, kept waiting by the servant I sent to you days ago for this very news, who still hasn't come back.
AI-assisted translation — This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Purgatorio medicamento alvum vacuasse te scripseras, ut fervor oculomm tuorum
t5 cum cetero onere decederet. scire postulo, an praedicta curatio efficax faerit nec sub-
egerit causa etiam sanguinis emissione venas iuvari. par requirit adfectio, quantam
vobis fidem faciat filiae meae sanitas, ut his ex voto cognitis sollicitudinum acuta de-
ponam. nam mibi ob alia quoque aegre est turbas patriae cogitanti. quas praecipne 2
movent in usum militarem petita servitia. et nos quidem crebris precibus obnitimur
20 et diem ducimus supplicando , iamque ad pretium argenti quinque librarum misera
oblatione perventum est ; sed vereor. ne nos alterius rei fuga utroque despoliet. prae- 3
fectns agendo negotio segnior visus Lampadio successore mutatus est, cuius moribns
crediderunt inpossibilia promoveri. nunc peto, ut me anxium maiore cura, quae vos
respicit, ea levetis. nam adhuc discrucior incerto per moram servuli, qui dudum ad
25 voB ob eadem noscenda missus necdum revertit.
LXV (LXVI) a. 398 1
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