4 surviving letters between Ennodius of Pavia and Parthenius, spanning 493-517 AD.
If I did not love you to distraction, and if the solidity of my pious affection did not rest on an unshakeable...
I do not wonder at your silence regarding words — for I know you well enough to expect it.
**From:** Ennodius, deacon of Pavia
Silence would have been the proper response to your own silence — an eye for an eye, as it were.