Letter 3049: Everything goes according to my wishes when I am granted the knowledge of your good health.

Things turn out for me in accord with my own wishes, whenever it is granted to enjoy the knowledge of your well-being. As for the gift of your address [letter], I consider it sufficiently established and clear in your eyes. For what affection would you be expending upon me, if you were uncertain about me? And would that these writings of yours, full of honor as they are, were also as frequent. For the thirst for good things is grievous, a thirst for which only the constant enjoyment of them provides a remedy. Therefore make use, and even abuse, more indulgently of the bounty of your letters. For the more there is in your letters in which I may rejoice, the more there remains that I long for. Farewell. [Critical apparatus and editorial markings follow in the source: a notation "XXXXVII, year 378," the heading TO EUTROPIUS, a list of manuscript variant readings, and the page header "86 - THE LETTERS OF SYMMACHUS."] TO EUTROPIUS. Free from harm, take your ease, and, relaxed for your children, keep watch, since the unrolling of the days has so brought it about that, by the most valiant and at the same time most fortunate hand of our lord Gratian, the tottering burdens of the commonwealth are propped up. [The source here cites Virgil, Aeneid IV.174: "Rumor, than which no other evil is swifter."] You seem to me to have set forth these matters in a more panegyric style than the custom of a letter requires. So the reasoning stands: that the greatest affairs demand great openings of the mouth [grand utterance]. But these things, to be carried out with the pen, I grant to you before others, you in whom Minerva is strong; let us return to familiar matters. For a long time good health has been at odds with me. You grieved a little, I know. Lay aside your anxiety! Now we are well. Now there is need of restoration, the abundance of which can come to me from the nourishment of your conversation, if you will lend your effort in that manner. [Source breaks off here with the letter-number heading "XLVIII" for the next letter.]

Ex sententia mihi cupita succedunt, si quando perfrui datur salutis tuae cogni- 25 tione adloquii munere ego liquere apud te satis habeo conpertum. quid enim mihi amoris inpenderes, si de me incertus esses? atque utinam scripta haec tua, quam sunt honoris plena, tam crebra sint. gravis est enim sitis rerum bonarum, cui sola fruendi adsiduitas medicinam facit. ergo indulgentius abutere munificentia scriptionum. nam quo plus est in litteris tuis, quod gaudeam, hoc magis superest, 30 qnod requiram. vale. XXXXVU a. 378. AD EVTKOPIVM. Noxae vacuus otiare et liberis remissus invigila, quando ita volvenda attulit dies, ut d. n. Gratiani fortissima simul ac felicissima manu nutantia reip. pondera fulciantur. 8 Verg. Aen. nil 174. Fama, malum qua non aliud velocius ullum. Dantlns P2m. 12 credebam F[r) 15 putarem poat nnntiari colloc, F 17 conquestus F ego PF, lacunam indieavi 26 inpenderis P 27 bonarom rerum F 28 utere F 86 • SYMMACHI EPISTVLAE P videoroe tibi iravTjYopixcorepov locatas, qaam mos epistalae simt? sie se habet ratio, at res maximae magnos hiatas oris reqairant. sed haee stilo exeqaenda tibi ante alios, cui poUet Minerva, conceth^nias; nos ad familiaria revertamar. dia a me bona valetado dissensit. inhomiisti paalalom, scio. pone sollicitadinem ! iam valemas. nanc refectione opas est, caias mihi copia sermonis tai pabalo, si annaeris istiosmodi & operam, poterit provenire. xxxxvm.