Letter 1062: You're busy with public affairs, so a short letter will spare you the tedium of a long read.
Symmachus to Probus.
Both a brief letter relieves you, occupied as you are with public affairs, of the tedium of reading, and the constant attentiveness of my duty has exhausted whatever seemed in need of writing. Rightly, then, with the greeting weighed out sparingly, I of necessity confine the letter to a compressed brevity. For the affirmation of affection is one thing, the display of eloquence another. And therefore the work of obliging you has counted for more with me than that of speaking. We shall seem copious enough, if we are judged abundantly diligent. 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AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
LVI (L) a. 368—383.
, SYMMACHVS PROBO.
• Et tibi pnblicis negotiis occnpato breves litterae demnnt fastidium lectionis, et
mei officii adsidnitas, qnidqnid scribendnm videbatnr, exhansit. merito salutatione
15 librata fmgi epistnlam necessario stringo conpendio. alia est enim protestatio amoris,
alia lingnae ostentatio. atqne ideo mihi antiqnior ftiit obseqnendi opera quam lo-
qnendi. copiosi videbimur, si abnnde sednli iudicemnr. vale.
LVn (LI) a. 368—383.
Revision history
- 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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