Letter 6006: Your letter was delivered to me while I was staying at the seventh milestone on the Via Ostiensis [the road from...

As though you were still ignorant of your own affairs, you are laying down formulas for the conduct of matters. But I, for my part, long ago set forth to your united selves the outcome of each case, and I believe that what I had written was delivered into your hands by the vicarial soldiers [couriers attached to the vicar's office]. What has been duly narrated and ascertained I do not repeat; this alone, even now, I had withheld from your notice out of a shame at any display: that I have sent the necessary letters by which our friends may be instructed concerning the frauds of the guardian, and I think that, if fortune favor the undertaking, something must be decreed whereby the liable man may be broken. But as for the fact that you have postponed your journey to the estates nearest the city, although most desirous of your company, I cannot disapprove. For you have alleged a pious cause for the delays, and therefore I set the necessity of a religious devotion before my own longing. I do not know whether, while you delay, some invitation may rather draw us out into Campania. But let this be left to the event; let us meanwhile cherish our mutual longings by writing. For the mind must be soothed with consolations as often as things hoped for are deferred. Farewell. In the year 397.

Tamquam adhuc negotiorum vestrorum nescii agendis rebus formulas praefinitis. lo at ego unanimitati vestrae utriusque exitum causae iampridem retexui, et credo in manus vestras per milites vicarianos delata, quae scripseram. merito enarrata et con- perta non repeto; hoc solum etiam nunc notitiae vestrae ostentationis pudore sub- traxeram, misisse me necessarias litteras, quibus amici de tutoris fraudibus instruantur, 2 et puto, si fors inceptum iuvet, decemendum aliquid, quo frangatur obnoxius. quod i^ vero iter ad proxima urbi praedia distulistis, quamquam vestri cupientissimus inpro- bare non possum. allegastis enim piam causam morarum, atque ideo desiderio meo necessitatem religiosae adfectationis antefero. haud scio, an morantibus vobis aliqua invitatio nos potius in Campaniam possit educere. sed hoc relinquatur eventui; nos interim mutua desideria scriptione foveamus. solaciis enim leniendus est animus, quo- 20 tiens protelantur optata. vale. VU a. 397.