Letter 18: I was about to scold you for your fondness for the countryside, convinced that you could have no excuse for rushing...
**To Auxentius** (358)
I was about to reproach you for delighting in the countryside, supposing you could offer no argument to justify your rush out there. But since I received the fruit you sent and saw what manner of things the trees produce on your estate, I have reversed my judgment entirely — how can you bear to leave such land even for a short time?
Surely this is what that famous garden must have been like, the one reputed to have yielded golden apples — which were not actually gold, for that is not the way of growing things, but which earned their golden reputation through sheer beauty. And yet, fine as your fruit was in its ripeness, your letter surpassed it: so much did it partake of bloom.
Do tend to the gods who watch over agriculture. And you need not trouble yourself over the offerings — let them not be the sort that goldsmiths' craft produces, but rather let the gods be honored from what they themselves have given. For I know well that clusters of grapes hung upon their statues please them more than golden vessels.
Related Letters
To Auxentius [a childhood friend with whom Synesius was trying to mend a quarrel].
To Auxentius [a childhood friend with whom Synesius was ending a quarrel].
I showed my affection not by accepting the gifts so much as by the pain I felt earlier over what pained me.
I have many reasons to respect Mocimus: he's been a friend since childhood, he never shrank from any task my uncle...
Your student Silvanus has been enrolled among the advocates [barristers at the imperial court], with Modestus...