Letter 9003: I see we've gotten into a contest of wits over a matter that friendship, reason, and time should have settled long ago.

Quintus Aurelius SymmachusUnknown|c. 366 AD|Quintus Aurelius Symmachus
friendship

I see we've gotten into a contest of wits over a matter that friendship, reason, and time should have settled long ago. So let me put an end to these mutual recriminations before our increasingly bitter exchanges go on forever. The complete set of Livy I promised you is still being held up by the work of careful emendation. But please send me a carrier for the promised gift, since the preparations for the praetorship have scattered my own people far and wide, and I have no one familiar to send. Farewell.

Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.

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