Letter 945: Praise for Severinus' career and virtue.

Your letter found us lingering in discussions about you. These concerned the years you spent in the legal profession, your power in each court, and how, though appearing not to have planned well when you left your former position, you immediately proved yourself wise by attaining greatness in the second. Your letters arrived amidst such talk. As they were read before those present, you were honored with much praise, as was the great Emperor—you for proving yourself worthy of admiration, and he for knowing how to admire virtue. You seem to me to display this virtue every day, distressing your enemies and gladdening your friends. What things are more beautiful than any land or any gold? To live desiring glory, despising those who possess much but live the life of a hare—though knowing where all that wealth came from. You have little money, but much renown everywhere, and the trust of the one who adorns the empire with his character, more than any others. May the gods who made him superior to the tyrant bring him here as well. For while his statues are a sweet sight to us, nothing compares to having the man himself, hearing that voice, enjoying the beauty of his soul from nearby, and seeing the beauty of his body flashing through the city.