Letter 2088: It is the voice of law and justice that a good-faith contract cannot be rescinded.

Quintus Aurelius SymmachusVirius Nicomachus Flavianus|c. 400 AD|Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|From Rome|To Rome|AI-assisted
friendship

It is the voice of justice and of the laws that a contract made in good faith cannot be rescinded. Our brother Helpidius desires to obtain the enforcement of this principle, for after the sale of his estate in Spain the buyer refuses to acknowledge part of the price, although everything was carried out in the customary manner toward the full transfer of the property conveyed to its new owner. This is the substance of his request, which, though supported by my words, is in truth aided by his own merits, so that by that equity for which you are distinguished you may either, by private rebuke, confound the shamelessness of the man who resists, or break his obstinacy by the authority of a public judgment. Farewell.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Vox iuris et legum est, bonae fidei contractum non posse rescindi. huius sen-
tentiae exsecutionem frater noster Helpidins optat adipisci, cui post venditionem Hispa-
niensis praedii sui partem pretii emptor abiurat, cum ad soliditatem transcriptae in
novum dominum possessionis cuncta ex more celebrata sint. haec summa est postn- 20
lati , quae meis quidem verbis ^g^ illius meritis adiuvatur , ut aequitate , qua clarus
68, aut pndorem refragantis privata obinrgatione confundas, aut contumaciam frangas
publici auctoritate iudicii. vale.

LXXXVni (LXXXVII) ante a. 390.

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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