Letter 7040: We haven't yet reached the coast at Naples to see the crown jewel of your estate, but everything the Tyrrhenian Sea...

Quintus Aurelius SymmachusDecius|c. 385 AD|Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|From Rome|AI-assisted
illnessmonasticismproperty economics

We have not yet reached the Neapolitan shore to behold the stronghold of your delights, but nevertheless all the places that the Tyrrhenian Sea washes are full of your name. Why say more? You have succeeded to the renown of Lucullus. For which reason I marvel all the more that you are sometimes able to pass over to other things; unless perhaps you flee abundance out of disdain and chasten satiety by a change. But you have been away too long up to now; I think that by the long duration of your frugality a longing for abundance has by now been won over for you. Why then do you not advance your step toward us? Or, if you gladly linger there amid our [shared] frugality, we must return in haste, since it does not befit us to lay claim to delights that belong to others. 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AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Nondum Neapolitanum litus accessimus visuri arcem deliciamm tuarum, sed ta-
men omnia, quae Tyrrhenus adluit, nominis tui plena sunt. quid multa? successisti
in famam Luculli. qao magis miror, ad alia te nonnumquam posse transire; nisi
forte fastidio fugis copias et mutatione castigas satietatem. sed nimium hactenus ab-
fuisti; puto iam parsimoniae diuturnitate conciliatum tibi desiderium copiarum. quin so
ergo ad nos gradum promoves? aut si libenter illic nostrae immoraris frugalitati,
redeundum propere nobis est, quos non decet alienas adfectare delicias. vale.

9 explicit ad attioum incipit eiusdem ad decium PV 11 sym deeio V 12 amicum meum

campani ineip. denuo M 14 praeponant V 18 quaip P 20 adde] ego, ad PVM sacie-
Utem PM, societotem V 22 religioni PVM, eorr, M

fastigio PV sacietatem P actenus P l m. abfuisti] Af, adfuisti V, afuisti P 30 iani) nam V

quin] cul P l m. 32 est quos non decet alienas] VAf(//), ^^jjJilJiJji.;;iJjjuK% P dewilias V
uale] ua// P

xxxvn.

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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