Letter 4031: When I departed, you entrusted me with a responsibility befitting our friendship: not to keep silent about matters...
As I was departing, you saw fit to entrust me with a charge befitting our friendship: that I should not keep silent about matters bearing on your reputation and your official acts. Since the occasion therefore demands it, I carry out what was enjoined upon me. For I see that the accounting of the basilica and the bridge has indeed been rightly committed to Bonosus, a man of praetorian rank, who possesses both the vigilance to bring to light the obscurities of the public accounts and the good faith to pursue whatever the audit may uncover; but I fear that the task laid upon him may grow cold amid evasions, since the man he has received as his colleague in the investigation works against him. And for that reason I do not allow it to be hidden from you that the matter is being brought to such a point that a great squandering of public funds is being concealed under the guise of contention. For what does that pairing intend for itself, especially in an inquiry of this kind, which seems to bind the very investigator? Therefore a correction must at last be applied to this part [...]
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Discedenti mihi curam legare dignatus es amicitiae congruentem, ut famae atque
actibus tuis accommoda non silerem. causa igitur postnlante fungor iniunctis. video
enim basilicae pontisque rationem recte quidem Bonoso praesidali viro esse manda-
tam, cui et vigilantia superest ad luminandas publicae rationis ambages et fides ad
persequenda, quae examen invenerit; sed vereor, ne ludificationibus res iniuncta 30
frigescat obluctante eo, quem socium discussionis accepit, atque ideo clam te esse
non patior, eo rem deduci, ut labes magna snmptuum publicorum stndio certaminis oe-
2 culatur. quid enim sibi vult ista coniunctio in ea praesertim discussione, quae ipsum
quaesitorem videtur adstringere? quare huic tsindem parti adhibenda correctio est et
commodis Su$e 6 consulit VM 7 spes hoc qua de K, res de qua M 8 a^ parentem P
aquileinsi V 9 c f PF 10 hisdem VM, /isdem P 11 hino V 13 exoptet V de-
tentione] MereeruMj intentione PVM
itineris F ,
tantnm PVM
LiBER nn. 123
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
Related Letters
A fragmentary letter surviving only as a partial heading and brief reference in the manuscript.
Resume the path of our long-neglected custom — I lead the way, being the first to break our shared offense of silence.
I was wondering what could possibly explain the fact that a man so devoted to the courtesies of friendship had...
I had long been waiting for your letters, uncertain in my mind about what so prolonged a silence might mean.
No one who carries your letters to me has ever gone back to you empty-handed.