Letter 4015: The road to a favorable hearing is easier when the petition comes from a source that the powerful already trust.

Ennodius to Faustus. The path to obtaining a request is the more readily inclined, as often as the lowliness of the one petitioning demands something from a religious man: for he who is summoned by the miseries of a suppliant grants his goodwill under compulsion; he to whom his own resolve commands that he listen to the afflicted cannot offer hands that turn away. The bearer of this present letter weeps that he has been cast out from his ancestral soil, he who places what remains of his hope in your judgment, lest the power of his adversary should congratulate itself over gain and security. The sworn obligations of the laws regard you, the defense of the downtrodden regards you: I, for my part, have fortified my own cause by this commendation. Increase therefore your venerable name with acts of kindness, since, while you bestow what is just, you do not set aside even those things that pertain to mercy. My lord, receiving the reverence of one who salutes you, grant such effect to my entreaties that my own desire, while what is honorable is upheld, may be fulfilled.

XV. ENNODIVS FAVSTO. Procliuior ad inpetrandum uia est, quotiens a religioso aliquid exigit abiectio deprecantis: coactus enim praestat affectum qui miseriis supplicis inuitatur: non potest adferre obuias manus cui imperat propositum adflictos audire. perlator praesentium XIIII. 8 quotiens quotiens B 4 quodquid Bl fauore b 5 affectu Pb est T s. I. alloquis B 8 necio B, nescia T1 5 affectu Pb est T s. l .alloquis m 10 nequid B esset mihi] esse uidetur Pb 11 subpeterit locinium B pauper ex semper T m. 2 12 uberam L 13 archana LPTV 14 arcum Tl 15 foederatam Bl ut uid . quanquS L 17 circumstripentium B 20 concedat) finit add. B XV. 23 relegioso B 24 preetat B 25 meeeriie Bl suppliciis T 26 inperat B auito se cespite deflet abiectum, qui spei suae residuum in uestro ponit examine, ne aduersarii eius potentia de lucro et securitate gratuletur. uos legum sacramenta, uos defensio respicit submissorum: ego partes meas conmendatione muniui. uenerabile ergo nomen augete beneficiis, quia dum iusta tribuitis, nec illa quae ad misericordiam pertinent posthabetis. domine mi, reuerentiam salutati accipiens, ita precibus meis effectum tribue, ut proprium desiderium, dum honestas adseritur, possit impleri.