Letter 13.27

You know my affection for Gaius Avianius Evander, and you understand how highly I value him. I commend him to you most warmly and ask you to receive him among those you protect and to assist him in all his affairs. He is a man of the greatest learning and integrity, and most devoted to me. Whatever you do for him, I shall consider done for myself.

DXX (Fam. XIII, 27) TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME: I FREQUENTLY send you letters of this kind, which are replicas of each other, in thanking you for paying such prompt attention to my letters of introduction. I have done so in the cases of others and shall often, as I see, have occasion to do so again. Nevertheless I will not spare labour, and, as you jurisconsults are in the habit of doing in your formulae, I will in my letters “state the same case in a different manner.” Well then, C. Avianius Hammonius has written to me with profuse thanks in his own name and in .that of his patron Aemilius Avianius , saying that neither he him self; who was on the spot, nor the property of his absent patron, could have been treated with greater liberality or consideration. That was gratifying to me for the sake of those whom I had recommended to you, induced thereto by our very close friendship and union — for M. Aemilius is one of my most intimate and closest friends, a man eminently attached and bound to me by great services on my part, and about the most grateful of all those who appear to be under some obligation to me. But it is much more gratifying that you should be so disposed towards me as to do more for my friends than I perhaps could have done if I had been on the spot, I presume, because I should have been more doubtful what to do for their sake, than you are what to do for mine. But this I do not doubt — that you feel that you have obliged me. I only ask you to believe that those persons also are grateful: I pledge you my word and solemnly assert that it is so. Wherefore pray do your best that, whatever business they have on hand, they may get it settled whilst you still governing Achaia . I am living on the pleasantest and most harmonious terms with your son Servius , and derive great pleasure from his natural abilities and signal industry, as well as from his virtuous and straightforward character.

XXVII. Scr. Romae a.u.c. 708. CICERO SERVIO SAL. Licet eodem exemplo saepius tibi huius generis litteras mittam, quum gratias agam, quod meas commendationes tam diligenter observes—quod feci in aliis et faciam, ut video, saepius—, sed tamen non parcam operae et, ut vos soletis in formulis, sic ego in epistulis DE EADEM RE ALIO MODO. C. Avianius igitur Hammonius incredibiles mihi gratias per litteras egit et suo et Aemilii Avianii, patroni sui, nomine: nec liberalius nec honorificentius potuisse tractari nec se praesentem nec rem familiarem absentis patroni sui. Id mihi quum iucundum est eorum causa, quos tibi ego summa necessitudine et summa coniunctione adductus commendaveram, quod M. Aemilius unus est ex meis familiarissimis atque intimis maxime necessarius, homo et magnis meis beneficiis devinctus et prope omnium, qui mihi debere aliquid videntur, gratissimus, tum multo iucundius te esse in me tali voluntate, ut plus prosis amicis meis, quam ego praesens fortasse prodessem, credo, quod magis ego dubitarem, quid illorum causa facerem, quam tu, quid mea. Sed hoc non dubito quin existimes mihi esse gratum: illud te rogo, ut illos quoque gratos esse homines putes, quod ita esse tibi promitto atque confirmo. Quare velim, quidquid habent negotii, des operam, quod commodo tuo fiat, ut te obtinente Achaiam conficiant. Ego cum tuo Servio iucundissimo coniunctissime vivo magnamque quum ex ingenio eius singularique studio, tum ex virtute et probitate voluptatem capio.