Letter 8002: I'm overjoyed to hear you're well and that you haven't forgotten our friendship amid the hardships of public business.

Quintus Aurelius SymmachusAlevium|c. 365 AD|Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|To Alevium (recipient)|AI-assisted
friendshiptravel mobility

I overflow with joy, now that I have learned that you are well and that you remember our friendship amid the hardships of business. But when will it come about that the losses of our separation are mended by the consolations of letters? For my part, I had wished that you should be among the foremost to take part in the rods of office [the fasces] of my praetor, and to lend distinction to our shared festivities; but it is unavoidable that the business of the Senate be set before me as my excuse. Therefore in the words above there is rather an attestation of longing than a complaint about our separation. The favor of the heavenly powers will grant that, discharged from the duties owed to our homeland, you may by a fortunate journey betake yourself to the solemn rite of our games.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Abundo laetitia, postquam valere vos didici nostraeque amicitiae inter negotiorum
P dura meminisse. | sed quando fiet, ut solaciis litterarum damna abstinentiae sarciantur? 10
ego autem vos praetoris mei fascibus primos interesse voluissem festisque communibus
decus facere; sed feram necesse est anteferri mihi causapi senatus. quare in supe-
rioribus verbis desiderii magis contestatio est quara querella discidii. praestabit cae-
lestium favor, ut mandatis patriae absoluti iter felix ad ludorum nostrorum sollemne
relegatis. t^

XV.
AD ALEVIVM.

Ex debito venit sermo, qui redditur, ex beneficio, qui sponte defertur. secundae
igitur mihi partes relictae sunt, postquam stilus tnus mea scripta praevenit. nunc
vice salutationis repensa operam tuam curamque deposco in fis, quae Castor ex usu 20
atque utilitate nostra promovenda suggesserit.

XVI.

Revision history

  1. 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import

    Initial corpus import from modern symmachus retranslated v1.

    Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/details/qaureliisymmach00seecgoog

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