Letter 5002: While my mind was tossing between hope and fear in anxious uncertainty about you, you opened up sure signs of your...

Ennodius to Marcianus. While my mind was being tossed about anxiously by uncertainty concerning you, between hope and fear, you have unlocked, with the honey of conversation, solid proofs of your advancement, because, as a faithful heir of learning, you follow the eloquence native to your lineage. The vein, as I see, does not degenerate. The succession of tongues and of skill runs along the same channel by which inheritances descend... I used to think that the endowments of knowledge and learning were a matter only of natural talents and not of family, and that they were not drawn down through pedigrees, since it is continuous toil and unwearied sweat that acquire them. But, as far as appears, eloquence keeps its own ranks, and the splendor of speech, which overflowed in the ancestors, passes over to their descendants: the course of knowledge agrees with that of rivers, and through accustomed channels the wave of speaking also glides onward. Erudition comes to you together with your father's fortune, and the tombs restore Asterius to us in the good offspring. I confess that until now I have envied the older years, and I sighed for the age to which he had been granted, being a careless appraiser of the heavenly benefits, when I was able to despair of the fruits of the toga while the substance of the root remained. But the heavenly dispensation, in order that it may give grace to its benefits, makes that which it bestows to be unforeseen, and while it passes beyond what is customary, it makes its own power manifest through liberality. Liguria is not barren of good offspring: it nourishes for the forum the shoots which the senate house too may gladly embrace. By known nearness the advocate and the senator are joined together: to those who shall have used the toga well, the palm-embroidered robe, ready to receive them with opened folds, holds out its allurement. Farewell, sweetest one, and apply yourself greatly to these honors: let honorable studies take possession of you wholly: make haste, that you may come to your native harvest, cleansing your tongue with the hoe of reading, and your character by the imitation of good men.

II. ENNODIVS MARCIANO. Dum inter spem et metum animus meus anxio de te iactaretur incerto., solida profectus tui indicia conloquii melle reserasti, quia domesticam origini tuae facundiam fidelis doctrinae heres insequeris. non degenerat, ut uideo, uena. linguarum et peritiae successio illo quo patrimonia iure discurrit... putabam 2 semper—mediocris om. L* add. m. ant. in mg . 4 et terminos B 5 in h.] inhumanas T concinatione B trangesus B 6 nris AT 7 celo nobis B, nobis caelo B 9 per] pro B placere B affecto T caritatis L 10 incerta B 11 poet iungat 8 litt . ras. in B affectus PRb 12 ueniat LPT1V, ueniet B ualete — affectui om. AB, inclusit Sirm. domine B, domiae P (asd e corr.) b 13 tamantem B reoelate T con- i loqis B 14 preatentur B a effectui V (a s. I. M. 1), effectui Pb; flnit add. B, codices A et B autem hanc exhibent subecriptionem: data xvin, kldaram noubrm die indictione VIII. (octaaa flnit add. A) AR H. 16 marttano T 17 com T anxio de te B, de te aIIdo LPTV, de te anxius b 19 facondiam Tl 21 diacurret et B scientiae dotes rem tantum ingeniorum esse non familiae nec duci per stemmata quod labor continuus et indefessus sudor adipiscitur. sed, quantum apparet, ordines suos seruat eloquentia et oris pompa, quae exundauit in ueteribus, migrat ad posteros: concordat scientiae cursus et fluminum, per consuetos alueos et dicendi unda praelabitur. uenit ad te cum censu patris eruditio et bono subolis Asterium sepulcra restituunt. inuidi fateor hactenus annis senioribus et aetatem, cui ille concessus fuerat, suspiraui, beneficiorum caelestium neglegens aestimator, quando potui desperare de togae fructibus radicis manente substantia. sed superna dispensatio ut det genium beneficiis, inprouisum facit esse quod tribuit et dum nota. transgreditur, potentiam suam liberalitate manifestat. non est bonis partubus infecunda Liguria: nutrit foro germina, quae libenter amplectatur et curia. nota proximitate sociantur causidicus et senator: his qui bene toga usi fuerint reseratis susceptura sinibus palmata blanditur. uale, dulcissime, et ad haec decora multus incumbe: totum te studia honesta suscipiant: festina, ut ad messem patriam uenias, linguam lectionis sarculo, mores bonorum imitatione purgando.