Letter 9025: You complain that your camp duties keep you exceedingly busy, yet, as though your time were all your own, you read...

L To Mamilianus. You complain that your camp duties keep you exceedingly busy, yet, as though your time were all your own, you read my sportive trifles, approve them, ask for more, and spur me on with great importunity to compose others like them. I am beginning to seek not only amusement from this kind of literary work, but fame as well, now that I read your verdict on them, considering the weight of your judgment and learning, and, above all, your character for truth. At present I have some law cases which take up not my entire time, but a considerable part of it; when they are finished, I will send some more products of the same Muses to your kindly lap. You will give my little sparrows and doves leave to fly among your eagles, if such is their pleasure and yours; but, if they fail to please you, you will see to it that they are confined with a cage or a nest. Farewell.

L To Mamilianus. You complain that your camp duties keep you exceedingly busy, yet, as though your time were all your own, you read my sportive trifles, approve them, ask for more, and spur me on with great importunity to compose others like them. I am beginning to seek not only amusement from this kind of literary work, but fame as well, now that I read your verdict on them, considering the weight of your judgment and learning, and, above all, your character for truth. At present I have some law cases which take up not my entire time, but a considerable part of it; when they are finished, I will send some more products of the same Muses to your kindly lap. You will give my little sparrows and doves leave to fly among your eagles, if such is their pleasure and yours; but, if they fail to please you, you will see to it that they are confined with a cage or a nest. Farewell.