Letter 2071: It is a duty of human decency to furnish recommendations to those who seek them.

Quintus Aurelius SymmachusVirius Nicomachus Flavianus|c. 396 AD|Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|From Rome|To Rome|AI-assisted
property economics

It is in keeping with humane feeling to grant a letter of recommendation to those who ask for one; but in the case of Zenobius the occasion for such a service is the more willing, since he is a friend of mine, and therefore affection is owed to him rather than merely bestowed. For this man I desire that your patronage be forthcoming. For the first consideration is that he be esteemed on my recommendation; the second will be that he commend himself by his own honorable character. Farewell.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.

Latin / Greek Original

Humanitatis interest commendationem deferre poscentibus, in Zenobio autem talis
officii causa propensior est, cum sit familiaris meus atque ideo illi debeatur potius

quam praestetur adfectio. huic patrocinium tui cupio provenire. nam pri- s

mum est, ut meo sufiragio diligatur, secundum erit, ut sua honestate conplaceat. vale.

LXXI (LXX) ante a. 395.

Revision history

  1. 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import

    Initial corpus import from modern symmachus retranslated v1.

    Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/details/qaureliisymmach00seecgoog

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