Letter 5033: My affection for you urged me to write; the haste of the departing courier limited me to a few words.

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus→Unknown|c. 382 AD|Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|AI-assisted
travel mobility
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Your affection, to be sure, prompted me to write, while the haste of the man passing through prompted me to say but few words. Therefore, content yourself with a greeting which, even if it does not fully discharge the obligation, nevertheless attests my affection, and in return send me something to read; and, if it must be so, rival my brevity. For although I am desirous of your most polished discourse, yet my awareness of this cramped page makes me not dare to demand from you an abundance of words.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Amor quidem tuns suasit, ut scriberem, praeterenntis festinatio, ut panca dicta-
rem. quare salntatione contentus, quae etsi non explet officium, tamen contestatnr
adfectum, redde invicem, quae legamus, et si necesse est, aemulare brevitatem. nam &
cum sim nitidissimi sermonis tui cupidus^ conscientia tamen huius angustae paginae
non audeo a te verborum copiam postulare.

Ln (L) a. 398 ?

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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