Letter 6073: I confess I've kept my pen idle for a while.

I confess I've kept my pen idle for a while. There was simply nothing worth reporting, and I was getting cheerful news about your health from people coming through. Finally, affection overcame inertia. So I'm resuming the custom of sending greetings, free of any business. After our retreat to Tibur [Tivoli], we've been passing the time quietly in Rome. But we're not entirely idle at home -- the crumbling walls need patching up. The original builder cared more about filling the house with visitors than about structural soundness: he valued speed of use over the safety of future occupants. You, on the other hand, are building new things meant to last for ages. Word has it you've put up something to rival the works of Lucullus [the famously extravagant Roman general]. Not that we've been outspent: it costs just as much to keep repairing what keeps falling down as it does to build solidly once. Farewell.

20 Dia me ab stilo fateor temperasse; nihil enim quod scriberemas, emersit, salatis aatem vestrae laetam fidem de adventantiam sermone capiebam. tandem cessationem vicit adfectio. reparamus igitar dicendae morem salatis vacai omniam negotioram. post Tibartem qaippe secessionem Romae otia lenta prodacimas. sed non asqaeqaa- qae agendaram reram samas desides. nam domi corraptoram parietam discidia sar- 26 ciantar, qaia freqaentationem soliditati conditor primas antetalit et antiqaior ei visa est celeritas utendi qaam secaritas succedentiam. vos nova et aevam mansara moli- mini; siquidem sermo distalit, quaedam vos LacuUanis operibus aeqaanda fecisse. nec tamen vobis inpendii magnitadine cesserimas. par enim samptus est semel so- lida conlocare et saepe integrare rectdentia. vale. rarom] (77), periit in P exe/// P 15 maiore P 1 m. qnior ei nl«a] (77), /f////////,'///\sti P 26 quam securitma] (77), perUt in P et aeuum] (77), perUt in P molimina P 2 m. 27 //rmo P 28 sumptum (F) 29 conloc*T/////epe P ro- cedentift r*, cedentia P 1 m.j ctdentia P2 m. 174 SYMMACHI EPISTVLAE LXXI (LXXni.