Letter 9025: I repay everyone who gives me an occasion to write with the currency of a recommendation.

Quintus Aurelius SymmachusUnknown|c. 378 AD|Quintus Aurelius Symmachus|AI-assisted
education booksillnessimperial politicsmonasticism

[End of a preceding letter:] To all who afford me an occasion for writing I also repay a certain reward of recommendation. Now I wish this done for the excellent gentleman Petrucius, who I know requested this letter not so much for his own recommendation as for the sake of my courtesy. His service I judged ought to be repaid in turn: he asked for a letter so that we might be approved by you the more warmly; I, on the contrary, confess that I have written for this reason, that he might be rendered more welcome to you.

[Letter LXI (LVIII), To Pacatus:] I am scarcely brought to believe that my letters, often repeated, have brought Leontius no remedy; for if our frequent intervention had possessed no force, he would cease, having been disappointed so many times, to long for my support. Since, therefore, the trustworthiness of that complaint of his is doubtful in my judgment, I wish to test to which side in particular my doubt ought to be assigned. There is, therefore, in [...]

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Omnibus, qui occasionem scriptionis inpertiunt, et commendationis quandam re-

pendo mercedem. nunc optimo viro Petrucio factum volo, quem scio hanc epistulam

non tam m sui commendationem quam mei officii gratia postulasse. cuius operam versa

vice munerandam putavi: poposcit litteras, ut tibi probaremur inpensius; ego contra

25 ideo scripsisse me fateor, ut tibi ille acceptior redderetur.

LXI (LVIU).
AD PACATVM. p

Vix adducor, ut credam, litteras meas saepe repetitas nihil Leontio remedii con-

tulisse; quia si nihil virium frequens interventus noster habuisset, desisteret suflFra-

30 gium meum totiens elusus optare. cum igitur apud me querellae istius fides dubia

sit, experiri volo, cui potissimum parti dubitatio mea debeat adplicari. est igitur in

2 sibi patrooinium] (J7), patrociniam gibi F tcoessisse] (//}Fi, accepisse F2.8 uale add, FLS

5 est] (Fjy om, {II) 6 laeunam jmneUs indieat (/Z), quae ipsa postulatl aequitas commendat nip-

pUt Scioppiua 8 praestautis] (/*), praesentis (//)

14 fortunae] KiessUng, fortuna (/7) 17 amici] 8u$e, amicis (//)

21 et om, {F) 23 in sui commendationem] ego, sui commendatione (/7) 24 muneraudam

putaui poposcerit {F), namerandam »»♦»«« poposcit (//) probaremur] ego, probaretur (//), probarer {f)

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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