Letter 5035: Our brother Helpidius was called away not only by desire for your company but also by the consul's letter.

Our brother Helpidius was summoned forth no less by longing for you than by the letter of the consul. And although the old bond between you promises him your affection, nonetheless, as I judge, my own petition will add something too by way of recommendation. Build up, therefore, I beg you, your former attentiveness toward your friend with fresh kindnesses, to the end that perfect things may be heaped still higher, and grant me this gift, that he may perceive the merits which he established with you by his services have grown through my favor. [Year 396-397. Symmachus to Felix.] Whoever neglects a friend's good name is of slippery faith. That this may not rightly be charged against me as a fault, I am made anxious on behalf of your reputation even in the wrongs done to others. By what law, for what public good has Eusebius, a man of clarissimus rank [a senatorial dignitary], who is said to have earned a place among the notaries, drawn out an uncertain and untested procurator, so that a civil suit might drag a property-holding matron away from the urban court? And in this case, although the petition holds the action to be a private one, the sacred titles [of imperial authority] threaten the responses with menaces. I beg you, consider what it is fitting to obtain from the august sanctuary whose oracles you speak. I speak with you in brotherly solicitude: the reputation of all the rescripts looks to you. What if the memory of the matter itself also appeals to your good faith? You will remember Ampelius, a man of bright and illustrious recollection, that he bought a small house, which he enriched with costly ornament, beneath the Slope of Salus, as a fellow citizen, as a colleague. By the day of thirty years the age of his possession has grown gray. The author of his title was Postuminus, grandson of Iovius, who among the other goods of his mother Porphyria obtained this house also by succession. This Porphyria never had any dealing whatever with Theodosius, whose property Eusebius once obtained. Now the procurator, known in the forum at the Maenian Column for many such tricks, shakes inveterate rights with petitions, samples the judgments of all the powers, abandons the outcomes of actions once begun, sets up new beginnings, brings charges against the Roman tribunal, and allows neither the antiquity of the possession, nor the prerogative of senatorial rank, nor the reputation of the prefecture to remain unshaken. To these audacious acts a fiscal coloring is added, as though on account of an inquiry into movable goods owed to the divine house out of the property which Eusebius obtained. Where did this diligence lie hidden for so long? By the collusion of which bureau did the public losses lie concealed? If the procurator did not apply public torches to his own business, even now so many offices, so many inquisitors would not know what has been sought for the treasury; and surely it is fair that the defense of the divine house should furnish more attentive eyes to the matters enjoined upon it. What has the movable property in common with the estate? No error of the senses, no interpretation of words can confuse these names with one another. Furthermore, Porphyria and Postuminus are strangers to the goods once proscribed; much more is Ampelius, the buyer of the house, far removed from any contagion of the movables. What remains, except that your equity should judge a private petition, which is sustained by no roots, to be cloaked by the shadow of sacred reverence? Love of the age and your friendship have driven me to set these things down in a letter. The same things I would have taken care to make plain openly to our brother Sperchius, a man of illustrious rank, being assured of his character, if he had ever offered me confidence in himself through letters; but I myself ought not to have made a beginning of exchanging writings mutually from such a matter. It will therefore be the choice of your magnitude [your eminence] to carry to his ears what we have written. For it is indeed worthy that what will profit the reputation of both should be corrected by the consent of both.

Fratrem nostrum Helpidium non mlnus desiderium tui quam epistula consnlis evo- cavit. cui etsi amorem tuum prisca inter vos coniunctio pollicetur, nonnihil tamen, ut arbitror, etiam petitio mea commendationis adiciet. extrue igitur, quaeso te, novis erga amicum beneficiis veterem diligentiam , quatenus possint perfecta cumulari , et io hoc mihi munus adtribue, ut merita, quae suis apud te fundavit obsequiis, sentiat meo favore crevisse. Lnn (LH) a. 396—397. PVM . SYMMACHVS FELICI. Quisquis amici negle^t famam, fide lubrica est. hoc mihi ne vitio iure ducatur, 25 etiam in aliorum iniuriis pro tua existimatione sollicitor. qua lege, quo bono publico Eusebit V. c, qui meruisse inter notarios fertur, incertus atque inexploratus procurator elicnit, ut dvilis petitio urbano abstrahat foro possidentem matronam, qua in causa, cum supplicatio privatam teneat actionem, sacros titulos responsa minitantur? quaeso 2 te, cogites, quid de augusto adyto, cuius loqueris oracula, deceat impetrari. fratema 30 tecum soUicitudine loquor: rescriptorum omnium fama te respicit. quid si etiam rei memoria fidem tuam convenit? Ampelium clarae et inlustris recordationis virum parvas om, M 30 adyto] adsto V, om. M aedes, qnas pretioso auxit ornatu, sub clivo Salutis emisse, ut civis, ut collega remi- PVM nisceris. triginta annorum die incanuit aetas possessionis. auctor ei Postuminus ne- pos lovii fuit inter cetera parentis suae Porphyriae bona hanc quoque adeptus domum per successionem. huic Porphyriae nihil umquam negotii cum Theodosio, cuius olim 3 & facnltates Eusebius impetravit. nunc procurator a columna Maenia multis huiusmodi 5UteIis foro cognitus invetera/a iura supplicationibus quatit, degustat iudicia omnium potestatum, coeptarum actionum exitus deserit^ instaurat exordia, Romanum criminatur tribunal, non possessionis antiquitatem , non dignitatis senatoriae praerogativam , non praefecturae existimationem sinit inconcussam manere. his ausibus color fiscalis adli- 4 10 nitur, veluti ob inquisitionem mobilium ex bonis, quae meruit Eusebius, divinae do- mui debitorum. ubi haec diligentia diu iacuit? cuius scrinii conludio publica damna latuerunt? si procurator non admoveret negotio suo publicas faces, etiam nunc tot of- ficia, tot inquisitores fisco quaesita nesdrent, et sane aequum est, ut defensio divinae domus adtentiores oculos praestet iniunctis. quid mobilibus commune cum praedio? 5 15 nullus error sensuum, nulla verborum interpretatio potest nomina ista miscere. dehinc a proscriptis quondam bonis Porphyria et Postuminus alieni sunt ; multo magis aedium emptor Ampelius procul abest a contagione mobilium. quid restat, nisi ut aequitas vestra privatam petitionem nullis sustineri radicibus iudicet, cui sacrae reverentiae umbra praetexitur? haec me in epistulam conferre amor saeculi et amicitia tua. con- 6 20 pulit. eadem viro inlustri fratri nostro Sperchio morum eius securus palam facere curassem, si umquam mihi per litteras obtulisset fiduciam sui; ipse autem principium facere conserendis mutuo scriptis a tali genere non debui. erit itaque optio amplitu- dinis tuae in aures eius perferre, quae scripsimus. dignum quippe est, ut quod existimationi utriusque proficiet, amborum consensus emendet.