Letter 6056: Please welcome Maximus -- an old friend but a brand-new courier [agens in rebus, an imperial messenger], a man going...
Receive Maximus, an old friend but a new agens in rebus [imperial courier-official], serving among the recruits though already grey-haired in service. From him you will learn the things you wish to inquire about, and for that very reason I must avoid [...] of a lengthy letter without any request for your arrival, which I frequently solicit; and if my longing for you allowed it, I ought by now to fall silent, since requests that achieve nothing breed a sense of shame. But my love for you persuades me almost to shamelessness, frequently though I am put off. I fear, however, that you have promised your return for this very reason: to forbid our own dashing off to you.
[Editorial note: Book V (LV), winter of 397/8.]
Symmachus to his sons the Nicomachi.
We pray for your good health, an indication of which we hope to receive when the boy returns. My own health is for the time being free of pains, but it lacks firmness, especially with the cares now mounting up, which the offering recently made by the senate has increased. It irks me to go on further, since I am sorry to have forced even these matters, free of anxiety, upon your mind.
[Editorial note: Book V (LVI), year 398?]
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Maximum veterem amicum sed novum agentem in rebus accipite inter tirones
cum canitie militantem. ab hoc percontanda discetis, atque ideo mihi fugienda est lo
prolixae epistulae //eratio absque adventus vestri petitione, quam frequenter exambio,
et si desiderium vestri sineret, iam silere deberem, quia verecundiam creant ineffica-
citer postulata. sed amor in vos meus prope inpudentiam suadet frequenter elusis.
vereor autem, ne ideo vestrum reditum promiseritis , ut nostrum ad vos prohiberetis
excursum. 15
Lim (LV) hieme 397/8.
SYMMAOHVS NICOMACfflS FILHS.
Salutem vobis precamur, cuius indicium puero revertente optamus accipere. mea
valetudo caret interim doloribus sed indiget firmitate maxime accedentibus curis, quas
proxime facta a senatu auxit oblatio. ire longius piget, cum haec quoque securis ab 20
animo ingessissepaeniteat.
LV (LVI) a. 398 ?
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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