Letter 6073: I confess I've kept my pen idle for a while.
I confess I've kept my pen idle for a while. There was simply nothing worth reporting, and I was getting cheerful news about your health from people coming through. Finally, affection overcame inertia. So I'm resuming the custom of sending greetings, free of any business.
After our retreat to Tibur [Tivoli], we've been passing the time quietly in Rome. But we're not entirely idle at home -- the crumbling walls need patching up. The original builder cared more about filling the house with visitors than about structural soundness: he valued speed of use over the safety of future occupants. You, on the other hand, are building new things meant to last for ages. Word has it you've put up something to rival the works of Lucullus [the famously extravagant Roman general]. Not that we've been outspent: it costs just as much to keep repairing what keeps falling down as it does to build solidly once. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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