Letter 5057: ...so that I might discharge my obligation to you according to the ancient custom.

Quintus Aurelius SymmachusUnknown|c. 391 AD|Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|AI-assisted
friendship

[...] so that I might discharge for you the observance of ancient custom. For by old institution this practice has grown common here, that those who have set out upon a journey offer beforehand the first-fruits of a written word. Therefore, invited by the auspicious token of a friendly courtesy, bear witness by constant correspondence to that brotherly devotion which you always show me in your heart.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

25 ut te observantia prisci moris absolverem. nam vetere instituto hic usus increbruit,

ut ingressi iter praelibent primitias scriptionis. quare familiaris officii invitatus au-

spicio fratemam religionem, quam mihi semper mente exhibes, adsiduo sermone testare.

LXXmi (LXXII) a. 387?

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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