Letter 4015: I know what you think of me.

Quintus Aurelius SymmachusStilicho|c. 372 AD|Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|From Rome|To Mediolanum|AI-assisted
education books

I do not know what you think of me; but, certain of your judgment, I do not refuse to be praised. Emulate me at least in this, that I admire you in silence, since reverence kept concealed carries the greater weight. Let us leave the flatteries of words to friends newly joined to one another; let mutual proclamations of praise gratify such people without end [...].

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Bcio quid de me sentias; sed certus iudicii tui [non] recuso laudari. aemu-
lare certe, quod te tacitus admiror, quia plus habet ponderis tecta yeneratio. relin-
quamus verborum blanditias novis inter se amicis ; illos iuyent altema praeconia usque 30

2 om. VF

biturj LypsHu, probator PVF te ipse V 12 metiare F

22 om. VF 23 cecilianus VF 25 si exsequi V, si in ra$. quinque fere Utterarum

LlBERim. 113

>

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

Related Letters