Letter 1004: A long, exuberant thank-you to Symmachus after a letter arrives like a public gift.

After enjoying a good night, made pleasant by dreams like these, I spent the morning with my friends. I told them what had happened in the night and at the same time predicted that the vision would bring some good result. When the day had advanced to the third hour and we were in the middle of our work, excellent Quadratus - blessed man, and how could he not be blessed after spending time with you? - came in to me and put the letter in my hand, saying simply that it was yours. At once everything that had been troubling me fled; and there had been many such troubles, long fixed in me and causing pain. A pleasure took hold of me greater than the pleasure money-lovers feel when money comes to them from somewhere. And this was before I had read it. Once the letter had found an interpreter, I thought it would be terrible if I did not fill the city with Fortune's gift. I handed the letter to three friends and ordered them to go through the whole city showing it to those friendly to us and to those not so friendly: to the first so they might rejoice, and to the second so they might choke on it. Some kept the silence of the distressed; others were celebrating, with you making this a festival for them. They called both you and me fortunate: me because I had been honored, you because you had done the honoring. For in this, they said, you had pleased the gods of learning by stirring young men toward eloquence, and in doing so you had also benefited the city you govern, urging those under your authority toward what they ought to pursue. In letters, then, as you yourself said, you were first; but I have won by loving first. For I have loved you since the time when your father came here to us, the gods who care for us granting us the chance to see the excellent Symmachus. He arrived as one of four, but he alone turned the whole city toward himself, showing himself better than good men in every respect, especially in the testing of speeches. In this he persuaded me to run to him every day. We were always engaged in saying something about the ancients, whose aim for others was education. Seeing that I was not altogether worthless, he spoke at length about your nature and asked the gods that something like this might happen, something that would make you share in my labors. I added the same prayer myself, and I was so affected by these hopes that the opinion I would have formed of you after accomplished facts, I already held while the facts still stood only in prayer. So I rejoiced when you sailed with favorable winds; when the sea was rough I was afraid; when it became smooth again I was glad. You invite me to be your friend, though I already am, and you tell me to write back, which I would have done even without being told. But when you ask for an equal letter, you ask what cannot be done. Even if it were equal in length and not inferior in form, it would become worse simply by having me as its writer. I would first have to become Symmachus myself, if my words were not to fall short of yours.