Letter 1100: The fact that I received no letter from you when the emperor entrusted me with reading his speech before the...

That I have received no letter from you, at the time when the oration sent by our eternal emperors [the reigning Augusti] was assigned to me to be read in the council of the Fathers [the Senate], I know was no token of disdain on your part. For where friendships are good and well-proved, even if their dutiful service should lapse, our estimations of them are quite secure. For this reason I have refrained from paying back like for like, being afraid that what you had done unwillingly, I, being offended, might be thought to have repaid. For the situation of a silence that is accidental is far different from that of one that is deliberate. The thing neglected is indeed one and the same, yet it makes a very great difference whether a man has left it undone as though preoccupied, or as though angry. But on this matter I consider that enough has been said. Now, if you love me, or because you love me — for I am confident that what I render is rendered back to me — bear witness before the unconquered emperors to my joy, who entrusted divine writings to a human voice, whose victories the Senate heard from the storehouse of my mouth. Cause it to come to mind what a day it was that dawned upon me, on which I, as though setting out from the midst of the battle line, was the first to pour the message of safety into the ears and minds of all. Long ago, when the Roman state had taken possession of military glory, the twin Polluces [Castor and Pollux] spread abroad at the lake of Juturna the favorable outcome of the battle. For the trustworthiness of the ancient volumes has handed down that they, with their horses panting, [...] full of sweat and dust, the report of the war being left behind their backs, laid claim to the token of victory. The same honor has now been granted to me by a sacred announcement. Thus as much grace as the Castors won, so much have the emperors bestowed. These things on my behalf, more copiously and more ornately, in proportion as you are the better in eloquence, you will set forth before the author of the benefit. You have the sum of my wish; and if you breathe into it any commendation, to the other adornments of your spirit there will be added the distinction of a service rendered in the present.