Letter 5031: I love your letters — they always bring me some good news.

Quintus Aurelius SymmachusUnknown|c. 381 AD|Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|AI-assisted
friendship

I love your letters, for they always bring me some occasion for rejoicing; I, however, repay your kind services with bare words. But, such is your excellent mind, it reckons these very words to be of profit, and therefore I keep persistent watch over this exertion of mine, which I know is valued by you at a high price. Meanwhile I have given thanks by letter to our lord and sovereign and to his generosity toward me, in words perhaps scanty but abundant in the affection of my heart. And if your singular concord and the proven loyalty of your friendship to me shall have introduced these thanks by a pleasant and well-timed reading, I shall not seem ungrateful, once the most invincible sovereign has confirmed, as I hope, that he has bestowed benefits of this kind upon a man who remembers them.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Amo litteras tuas, nam semper mihi aliquidgratulationis adportant; ego autem be-

nefactis tuis nuda oratione respondeo. sed ut est praeclara mens tua, perinde

has sibi existimat fructuosas, et ideo hanc operam perseveranter advigilo, quam scio
apud te pro magno aere censeri. interea domino et principi nostro eiusque in me 2
20 beneficientiae egi per epistulam gratias verbis fortassis exiguas sed adfeetione animi
copiosas. quas si eximia unanimitas tua et probata mihi amicitiae fides iucunda atque
oportuna insinuaverit lectione, non videbor ingratus, cum probaverit, sicuti opto, in-
viCtissimus princeps, beneficia se huiusmodi apud memorem conlocasse.

L (XXXXVni).

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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