Letter 5032: I am glad that my friend Aurelius has been admitted to the circle of your proteges — not only for his sake, since...
I am glad that my friend Aurelius has been commended to your circle of devotees, not only on his own account, since a man of the highest rank has taken upon himself the care of protecting him, but most of all on mine, whose testimony you valued as the equivalent of your own judgment. To this favor a still greater grace has been added by your letter, although there is in it something that can offend one who loves you. For by their brief passing, even while they bring me pleasure, they deny me satisfaction. And this is the nature of good things: that you wish to enjoy them more at length, and you take nothing harder than the swift passing of a discourse that has pleased you. Add, therefore, fullness to your letters, or, if you can, take away their sweetness. Unless you do so, I, being wounded, shall repay your disdain with the words I am accustomed to use, and with longer pages.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Relatum in cultores tuos Aurelium familiarem meum gaudeo non illius modo
nomine, quem tuendum summatis viri cura suscepit, sed meo maxime, cuius testimo-
ninm iudicii instar habuisti. accessit huic muneri auctior ex litteris tuis gratia, quam-
quam est in illis, quod amantem possit offendere. brevi enim /ranscursu, cum mihi
30 voluptatem adferant, negant satietatem. et est haec natura rerum bonarum, ut illis frui
prolixius velis nec quicquam durius sumas quam placitae orationis citum transitnm.
adde igitur epistulis tuis copiam vel, si potes, detrahe suavitatem. ni ita feceris,
laesus rependam fastidio tuo verba, quae soleo, et paginas longiores.
laudat V
que P 3 m, 30 baec est F 31 neqnicqnam P, sed eorr. 1 m. orationis placitae F
Q. Atbklivs Symmaohvs. \g
138 SYMMACm EPISTVLAE
u (xxxxvmi).
Revision history
- 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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If you honor our companion as he deserves, you will have done us a favor as well.
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