Letter 9012: Other letters of mine have been chasing you across Spain -- I had assumed you were living there because of the...
Other letters of mine have been chasing you across Spain -- I had assumed you were living there because of the extent of your estates. Now that more reliable reports tell me you are enjoying leisure at your ancestral home, I am grateful for the mistake, since it gave me a reason to write to you again. Yet even this second letter, though it should satisfy your expectations, does not yet satisfy mine. I wish I could honor your friendship with letters as continuously as I have never ceased to cherish it in my heart.
I add a request. My son's praetorian games [public spectacles, usually involving chariot races and wild beast shows, that Roman officials were expected to fund], which I have long been preparing you for, are now approaching -- if fortune smiles on us. This reminds me that I need to assemble noble chariot teams for the competition, selecting the best horses from many herds. Do not let the fact that you have settled far away in Spain work against my peace of mind. Just help the agents I have sent for the horse purchases with your letters of introduction. Your recommendation will carry weight with your friends on our behalf, I trust.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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I reap annual harvests of joy from your letters -- this is the return, these are the riches that Spain pays me.
I take great pleasure whenever I receive one of your letters.
(Of the same year. Here Cæsarius had bequeathed all his property to the poor; but his house had been looted by his servants, and his friends could only find a comparatively small sum. Besides this a number of persons, shortly afterwards, presented themselves as creditors of his estate, and their claims, though incapable of proof, were paid.
Our friendship is on everyone's lips, and the fame of your horses has reached distant places.
A letter from Damasus to Jerome, in which he asks for an explanation of the word Hosanna (A.D. 383). About this page Source.