Quintus Aurelius Symmachus→Unknown|c. 395 AD|symmachus
You say you're hampered by endless obligations and can't manage to write to your dearest friends as diligently as you'd like. No need to keep defending what we already know. Even from a distance, we're well aware of your cares and sleepless nights.
You've changed your role, not abandoned your duty — rightly, the welfare of citizens came before correspondence. Now we both long for and press for your letters, gathered like provisions against the coming winter. Though I know you don't yet consider that ground entirely safe. Love of country is never at ease; however great the remedies it finds, it always dreads the return of what it feared. Farewell.
Ais te multiiugis necessitatibus impediri, quo minus naviter amicomm carissimos 30
adloquaris. notae rei cesset adsertio. nam et qui procul absumus, curas ac vigiUas
Seioppiua, qois uoa P 1 m, V<Py qoi sub uua P 2 m. F, qui sitiua M 4 quaerellis P 6 uale add. V,
aale|e add. M
stulas (css eplas) ego publice P 1 m, 12 quod] quia VM 13 uires commeandum F, uires meas
commeantum M inuenit] VM{II)j periU in P 14 ne^otii Seioppiui 15 praeiuUrim: maior es
copia 17 esae non otii] P2 m, Af, non esse otii P 1 m, V
19 om. VF 22 in quemuis usum pubUci] ego, inquem uisu sub publici P> in quem uiai sub pu-
blici Vy sub publici usu F{r) promiscua] ed. Veneta, promisaa PVF 23 pluribus F 24 pe-
riculum eorr. ex periclum P 1 m. 25 muneribus delet lurettu repperies P, repperies V pa-
tenteui] 8ehottU3y parentem VF, ////ntem P, parentum // 26 fautum F 27 limate P 1 m,
LIBEE I. 29
tnas communis patriae copiis et satietate sentimas. mutasti igitnr officinm, non ne- PVF'
gasti. antiqnior enim tibi fuit, nt esse debnit, salns civinm qnam salntatio. nnnc
Bane et desideramns et exposcimus litteras tnas largiter congesta fruge in proximae
biemis inpendinm ; qnamqnam scio necdnm tibi hanc partem nimis tutam videri. num-
h qnam enim secnms est amor patriae , et quamvis magna remedia conqnirat , semper
illnd putat imminere, qnod timnit. yale.
AD CELSINVM TITIANYM GERMANVM SWM. PVM
LXn (LVI) antea. 381.
◆
You say you're hampered by endless obligations and can't manage to write to your dearest friends as diligently as you'd like. No need to keep defending what we already know. Even from a distance, we're well aware of your cares and sleepless nights.
You've changed your role, not abandoned your duty — rightly, the welfare of citizens came before correspondence. Now we both long for and press for your letters, gathered like provisions against the coming winter. Though I know you don't yet consider that ground entirely safe. Love of country is never at ease; however great the remedies it finds, it always dreads the return of what it feared. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.