The Letters of Sidonius (Book II – Book IV)

The Letters of Sidonius

continued

Letter 2.13

To Senanus* A. D. 461-7 [1] THE advocate Marcellinus has brought your letter; I find him a man of experience; he is of the sort that makes friends. The consecrated words of greeting over, you give all the rest of your space, no trifling amount, to laudation of Petronius Maximus, your imperial patron. With more persistence (or shall I call it amiability? than truth and justice, you style him 'the most fortunate', because, after holding all the most honourable offices of state, he at last attained the diadem. Personally, I shall always refuse to call that man fortunate who is poised on the precipitous and slippery peak of office. [2] O the unspeakable miseries of that life, the life of your fortunates! And are they who usurp the title, as Sulla did, really to be so styled for trampling upon all law and justice, and believing power the only happiness? Does not their blindness to their own most harassing servitude alone prove them more wretched than other men? For as kings rule their subjects, so desire of domination dominates kings. [3] Were the fate of all princes before and after him left out of the account, this Maximus of yours would alone provide the maximum of warnings. He had scaled with intrepidity the prefectorian, the patrician, the consular citadels; with an unsated appetite for office, he took for a second term posts which he had already held.

But when the supreme effort brought him to the yawning gulf of the imperial dignity, his head swam beneath the diadem at sight of that enormous power, and the man who once could not bear to have a master could not now endure to be one. [4] Imagine how much was left in all this of the influence, the power, and the stability of the old life; then think of this two-months' principate, its beginning, its whirlwind course, its end. Is it not plain that his real happiness was over and done before this epithet of 'fortunate' was ever given him? The man who once was so great a figure, with his conspicuous way of life, his banquets, his lavish expense, his retinues, his literary pursuits, his official rank, his estates, his extensive patronage; who so jealously watched the flight of time that the clock 2 must set before his eyes the passage of every hour; this man, once made emperor, and prisoned in the palace walls, was rueing his own success before the first evening fell. And when his mountainous cares forbade him to mete the hours in his former tranquil way, he had to make instant renunciation of the old regular life; he soon discovered that the business of empire and a senatorial ease are inconsistent with each other. [5] The future did not deceive his sad forebodings; it was no help to him to have traversed all other offices of the court in the fairest of fair weather;

his rule of it was from the first tempestuous, with popular tumults, tumults of soldiery, tumults of allies. And the climax was unprecedentedly swift and cruel; Fortune, who had long cozened him, showed now all her faithlessness and made a bloody end; it was the last of her that stung him, as the tail of the scorpion stings. A prominent, noble man of high culture, whose talents raised him to quaestor's rank, a man of great influence among the nobility, I mean Fulgentius, used to say that whenever the thrice-loathed burden of a crown set Maximus longing for his ancient ease, he would often hear him exclaim: 'Happy thou, O Damocles, whose royal duresse did not outlast a single banquet!' [6] History tells us that Damocles was a Sicilian of Syracuse, and an acquaintance of the tyrant Dionysius. One day, when he was extolling to the skies the privileges of his patron's life without any comprehension of its drawbacks, Dionysius said to him: 'Would you like to see for yourself, at this very board, what the blessings and the curses of royalty are like?' 'I should think I would,' replied the other. Instantly the dazzled and delighted creature was stripped of his commoner's garb and made resplendent with robes of Tyrian and Tarentine dye; they set him on a gold couch with coverings of silk, a figure glittering with gems and pearls. [7] But just as a Sardanapalian feast was about to begin, and bread of fine Leontine wheat was handed round;

just as rare viands were brought in on plate of yet greater rarity; just as the Falernian foamed in great gem-like cups and unguents tempered the ice-cold crystal; just as the whole room breathed cinnamon and frankincense and exotic perfumes floated to every nostril; just as the garlands were drying on heads drenched with nard,----behold a bare sword, swinging from the ceiling right over his purple-mantled shoulders, as if every instant it must fall and pierce his throat. The menace of that heavy blade on that horsehair thread curbed his greed and made him reflect on Tantalus; the awful thought oppressed him that all he swallowed might be rendered through gaping wounds. [8] He wept, he prayed, he sighed in every key; and when at last he was let go, he was off like a flash, flying the wealth and the delights of kings as fast as most men follow after them. A horror of high estate brought him back with longing to the mean, nicely cautioned never again to think or call the mortal happy who lives ringed round with army and guards, or broods heavy over his spoils 1 while the steel presses no less heavily upon him than he himself upon his gold. If such a state be the goal of happiness I know not my lord brother; but that those who attain it are the most miserable of men is proved beyond dispute. Farewell.

Letter 2.14: To his friend Maurusius

AD 461-7

I HEAR that your vines have responded to your hard work and our general hopes with a more abundant harvest than a threatening and lean year promised. I expect that you will consequently stay longer at the village of Vialoscum; 1 was not the place formerly called Martialis, from the time when it formed Caesar's winter quarters? Of course you have a rich vineyard there, and a large farm besides worthy of its great proprietor, both of which will keep you and yours busy harvesting the various crops and always in fresh quarters. [2] When your granaries and stores are full, you may decide to pass the snowy months of Janus and Numa in rural ease 2 by your smoking hearth until swallow and stork reappear; if so, we too shall cut short engagements hardly promising enough to keep us in town, and while you enjoy your country life we shall enjoy your society. You know me well enough to be aware that even the sight of a fine estate with ample revenues could never give me half the satisfaction or the keen pleasure which I derive from intercourse with a neighbour of my own years and so worthy of my esteem. Farewell.

Book III

Letter 3.1

To his friend Avitus c. A. D. 472 [1] FROM our earliest boyhood and through our youth you and I have been linked by many bonds of mutual affection. To begin with, our mothers were very near relations. Then we were born about the same time and were contemporaries at school; we were together initiated into the study of the arts and employed our leisure in the same amusements; we were promoted by the same imperial favour; we were colleagues in the service of the state. Lastly, in personal likings and antipathies our judgement has always agreed----perhaps a stronger and more efficient factor this, in widening the scope of friendship than all the rest together. [2] The outward resemblance of our careers drew us together by the bond of similar occupation; inwardly we were less alike, for yours was by far the higher and more excellent nature. And now I gladly recognize that yours is the hand to crown the edifice of our long mutual regard by this most timely endowment of the church in our poor town of Clermont, whose unworthy bishop I am. In this estate of Cutiacum, lying almost at its gates, you have indeed made an important addition to its property; to the members of our sacred profession whom your generosity has thus enriched, the convenience of access counts for almost as much as the revenue which the place yields. [3] Under your late sister's will, you were only a co-heir, but the example of your piety has already moved your surviving sister to emulate your good works.

And heaven has already repaid you as you deserve for your own deed and its effect upon her; God has chosen you out to be exalted by unusual good fortune in inheritances. He did not long delay to reward your devotion a hundredfold, and it is our sure belief that these earthly gifts will be followed by heavenly gifts hereafter. I may tell you, if you are really unaware of it, that the Nicetian succession is heaven's repayment for Cutiacum surrendered. [4] We pray you in the future to extend to the city itself the interest you have already shown its church; henceforward it should be more than ever the object of your protection since you have inherited a property there. You may conclude from the attitude of the Goths how valuable the place might become if you would only make it frequent visits; they are always depreciating their own Septimania, and even talking of returning it to the empire, all because they covet this land of yours, which they would like to annex even if everything upon it were laid waste. [5] But by God's grace and your mediation a more tranquil outlook lies before us.

For though the Goths have broken their old bounds, though their valour and the impetus of a vague greed have pushed their frontiers to the Rhône and Loire, yet the esteem in which you are held and the weight your opinion carries, should so influence both sides that we shall learn to refuse when we ought, and they to refrain from further demands when met with a firm denial. Farewell.

Letter 3.2

To his friend Constantius A. D. 474 [1] THE people of Clermont salute you, a great guest in their lowly homes, coming without ambitious retinue and simply environed by their love. Merciful God, what joy they felt amid their tribulation when you set your venerated foot within their half-ruined walls. How dense was the crowd of both sexes, and of every rank and age about you; how impartially you gave a cheering word to one and all; how kind the small boys found you, how considerate the young men, how helpful in advice the older among us. What tears you shed over our buildings ruined by the flames and our homes half burned to the ground, as if you had been the father of us all. What grief you showed at the sight of fields buried under the bones of the unburied dead. And afterwards what a power of encouragement you were, with what spirit you urged the people to repair their loss. [2] Over and above this, you found the city no less desolated by internal dissension than by the barbarian onslaught; but you conciliated all; you renewed their harmony; you gave the country back her sons. The walls are re-manned, the people restored to them at unity, all thanks to you; your counsel it was which brought them back into one mind as into one city. They all regard you as their father and themselves as your children; they perceive with an infallible eye wherein lies your greatest title to praise.

[3] For day by day it is borne in upon their minds what a magnificent thing this is that you have done at so advanced an age and in so delicate and infirm a state of health. Despite your noble birth and the veneration with which you are regarded, you broke down every barrier by sheer force of love; all the difficulties of the journey were nothing to you, long ways and short days, thick snows and thin fare, wide wastes and narrow lodging, roads full of holes, now sodden with rain, now ribbed with frost, highways covered with rough stones, rivers slippery with ice; you had steep hills to climb, valleys choked with continual landslides to pass; through every discomfort you came triumphant with the love of a whole people for your reward because your own comfort was the last thing of which you thought. [4] And now we beseech the Lord that he may hear our prayer and set far the term of your life; that the friendship of all good men may be yours to have and hold; that our affection which you seem to be leaving behind may ever be about your path; and finally, that the fair structure of our concord which you began to restore, may be regarded from foundation to summit as your peculiar work. Farewell.

Letter 3.3

To his brother-in-law Ecdicius A. D. 474 [1] THERE never was a time when my people of Clermont needed you so much as now; their affection for you is a ruling passion for more than one reason. First, because a man's native soil may rightly claim the chief place in his affection; secondly, because you were not only your countrymen's joy at birth, but the desire of their hearts while yet unborn. Perhaps of no other man in this age can the same be said; but the proof of the statement is that as your mother's time advanced, the citizens with one accord fell to checking every day as it went by. [2] I will not dwell on those common things which yet so deeply stir a man's heart, as that here was the grass on which as an infant you crawled, or that here were the first fields you trod, the first rivers you swam, the first woods through which you broke your way in the chase. I will not remind you that here you first played ball and cast the dice, here you first knew sport with hawk and hound, with horse and bow. I will forget that your schooldays brought us a veritable confluence of learners and the learned from all quarters, and that if our nobles were imbued with the love of eloquence and poetry, if they resolved to forsake the barbarous Celtic dialect, it was to your personality that they owed all.

[3] Nothing so kindled their universal regard for you as this, that you first made Romans of them and never allowed them to relapse again. And how should the vision of you ever fade from any patriot's memory as we saw you in your glory upon that famous day, when a crowd of both sexes and every rank and age lined our half-ruined walls to watch you cross the space between us and the enemy? At midday, and right across the middle of the plain, you brought your little company of eighteen 2 safe through some thousands of the Goths, a feat which posterity will surely deem incredible. [4] At the sight of you, nay, at the very rumour of your name, those seasoned troops were smitten with stupefaction; their captains were so amazed that they never stopped to note how great their own numbers were and yours how small. They drew off their whole force to the brow of a steep hill; they had been besiegers before, but when you appeared they dared not even deploy for action. You cut down some of their bravest, whom gallantry alone had led to defend the rear. You never lost a man in that sharp engagement, and found yourself sole master of an absolutely exposed plain with no more soldiers to back you than you often have guests at your own table.

[5] Imagination may better conceive than words describe the procession that streamed out to you as you made your leisurely way towards the city, the greetings, the shouts of applause, the tears of heartfelt joy. One saw you receiving in the press a veritable ovation on this glad return; the courts of your spacious house were crammed with people. Some kissed away the dust of battle from your person, some took from the horses the bridles slimed with foam and blood, some inverted and ranged the sweat-drenched saddles; others undid the flexible cheek-pieces of the helmet you longed to remove, others set about unlacing your greaves. One saw folk counting the notches in swords blunted by much slaughter, or measuring with trembling fingers the holes made in cuirasses by cut or thrust. [6] Crowds danced with joy and hung upon your comrades; but naturally the full brunt of popular delight was borne by you. You were among unarmed men at last; but not all your arms would have availed to extricate you from them. There you stood, with a fine grace suffering the silliest congratulations; half torn to pieces by people madly rushing to salute you, but so loyally responsive to this popular devotion that those who took the greatest liberties seemed surest of your most generous acknowledgements. [7] And finally I shall say nothing of the service you performed in raising what was practically a public force from your private resources, and with little help from our magnates.

I shall not tell of the chastisement you inflicted on the barbaric raiders, and the curb imposed upon an audacity which had begun to exceed all bounds; or of those surprise attacks which annihilated whole squadrons with the loss of only two or three men on your side. Such disasters did you inflict upon the enemy by these unexpected onsets, that they resorted to a most unworthy device to conceal their heavy losses. They decapitated all whom they could not bury in the short night-hours, and let the headless lie, forgetting in their desire to avoid the identification of their dead, that a trunk would betray their ruin just as well as a whole body. [8] When, with morning light, they saw their miserable artifice revealed in all its savagery, they turned at last to open obsequies; but their precipitation disguised the ruse no better than the ruse itself had concealed the slaughter. They did not even raise a temporary mound of earth over the remains; the dead were neither washed, shrouded, nor interred; but the imperfect rites they received befitted the manner of their death. Bodies were brought in from everywhere, piled on dripping wains; and since you never paused a moment in following up the rout, they had to be taken into houses which were then hurriedly set alight, till the fragments of blazing roofs, falling in upon them, formed their funeral pyres. [9] But I run on beyond my proper limits;

my aim in writing was not to reconstruct the whole story of your achievements, but to remind you of a few among them, to convince you how eagerly your friends here long to see you again; there is only one remedy, at once quick and efficacious, for such fevered expectancy as theirs, and that is your prompt return. If, then, the entreaties of our people can persuade you, sound the retreat and start homeward at once. The intimacy of kings is dangerous; 1 court it no more; the most distinguished of mankind have well compared it to a flame, which illuminates things at a short distance but consumes them if they come within its range. Farewell.

Letter 3.4: To his friend Magnus Felix

AD 473

THE bearer of this is Gozolas, a Jew, and a client of your excellency, a man I should like if I could only overcome my contempt for his sect. I write in great anxiety. Our town lives in terror of a sea of tribes which find in it an obstacle to their expansion and surge in arms all round it. We are exposed as a pitiful prey at the mercy of rival peoples, suspected by the Burgundians, almost in contact with the Goths; we have to face at once the fury of our assailants and the envy of our defenders. [2] But of this more later. Only let me know that all goes well with you, and I shall be content. For though we may be punished in the sight of all men for some obscure offence, we are still generous enough of heart to desire for others all prosperity. If a man cannot wish others well in evil times he is no better than a captive; the enemy that takes him is his own unworthy nature. Farewell.

Letter 3.5

To his friend Hypatius A.D. 473 [1] THE excellent Donidius admires and respects your character; and had he no other aim than his own family advantage, he might safely confide in your acknowledged reputation, and feel no need of another's advocacy. But he thinks so well of me, that he would have me ask for him what he could certainly obtain alone. Consequently, you will acquire a crowning title of distinction in making both of us your debtors, though one alone will reap the material benefit. [2] He seeks to acquire the other moiety of the estate of Eborolacum, abandoned even before the barbarian came, but now in possession of a patrician family; his rights are clear, but the added weight of your support would be very welcome. Respect for the memory of his ancestors, and no mere greed, inclines him to this purchase, for down to the recent death of his stepfather the whole property belonged to his family. He is of an economical turn of mind, but not the man to covet his neighbour's goods; the loss of a former possession in itself troubles him little; the point of honour decides him; it is not avarice which prompts his action, but the shame of inactivity. [3] Deign therefore to consider what you owe to your own credit, to his honourable desire, to my friendly intercession; help to secure for him this chance of rounding off the estate. These paternal acres are not just casually known to him; he crawled upon them as an infant hardly weaned. He will make little profit by their recovery; but he feels that it would have been too contemptible not to make the effort. Whatever favour you may be able to accord to one whom I regard as a brother in years, a son by profession, a fellow citizen by origin, and a friend by loyalty, I shall be as much beholden as if the matter turned to my own particular advantage. Farewell.

Letter 3.6: To his friend Eutropius

AD 470 (?)

IF kind memories still remain to you of our old comradeship and of an intimacy ever and again renewed, you will readily understand that our soaring wishes will follow your ascent to each new height of office. We rejoice with you over your insignia, believing that thereby your house and our friendship are alike promoted. In proof whereof I remind you of my letter of exhortations 1, which I think had no small share in this result. [2] But what trouble I had in persuading you that a man might be a philosopher and a prefect at the same time! You were deep in the tenets of Plotinus, and the Platonic school had seduced you into a quietism unsuited to your age. I maintained that only a man without family obligations was free to profess a philosophy of that nature. Most people ascribed your scorn for public service to simple indolence; malignant tongues added that our nobles fail to rise in the state less from disinclination than incapacity. [3] Now, therefore, as a Christian should, I begin by rendering unstinted thanks to Our Lord who has raised you to an official rank befitting your exalted birth; our hopes are also raised, so that we may fairly look for even better things to come. It is a common saying with provincials that a good year really depends less on ample crops than on a good administration; it must be yours, honoured lord, to crown all our expectations by such measures as the present occasion demands. Our nobles do not forget the stock from which you spring; they are sure that so long as the family of Sabinus controls their destinies, they have nothing to fear from the house of Sabinianus. Farewell.

Letter 3.7

To his friend [Magnus] Felix A.D. 474 [1] You are very sparing in your correspondence. Each of us obeys his own temperament: I gossip, you hold your peace. And since in other obligations of friendship you are beyond reproach, I am driven to the conclusion that this indefatigable love of ease must itself be a kind of virtue. But, seriously, will no thought of old acquaintance ever lift you from the rut of this interminable silence? Or are you really unaware that it is nothing short of insult to refuse a talkative man an answer? You bury yourself in the depths of a library or office and give no sign of life, yet all the while expect the attention of a line now and then from me; and this though you know quite well that mine is rather a ready than a gifted pen. [2] The apprehensions among which we live ought alone to furnish you with subject enough for letters; write then, and do not fail to entrust a good bulky missive to some one coming our way, to relieve your friends' anxieties and especially to let them know whether the new quaestor Licinianus 1 is likely to open a door of safety out of these mutual alarms. He is described as one who has more than fulfilled the expectations formed of him, proving greater on acquaintance than his great repute; in fine, a man conspicuously endowed with the best gifts of nature and good fortune.

[3] A model of judgement, adorned with equal discretion and personal charm, this trusty envoy is worthy of the power which he represents. He is quite free from affectation or pretence; there is nothing feigned in the gravity which lends weight to his words. He does not follow the example of most envoys who seek a reputation as safe men, and are over-timid in diplomacy; on the other hand, he is not to be numbered among those ambassadors to barbarian courts, who sell their master's secrets, and work for their own advantage rather than that of their mission. [4] Such is the character of the man as favourable rumour carries it to us. But let us know at once if the description squares with fact. Then perhaps we may snatch some breathing-space from our unceasing vigils; at present neither a snowy day nor a cloudy moonless night will tempt our people from their watch upon the walls. Even were the barbarian to draw off to winter quarters, their fears are too deep to be eradicated; at the most, they can only be deferred. Encourage us with hope of better times; you may regard our country as remote, but the cause we stand for is as near to your own heart as to ours. Farewell.

Letter 3.8: To his friend Eucherius (No indication of date)

I HAVE the highest respect for the men of antiquity, but mere priority in time shall never lead me to place the virtues and the merits of our contemporaries upon a lower plane of excellence. It may be true that the Roman state has sunk to such extreme misery that it has ceased to reward its loyal sons; but I will not therefore admit that a Brutus or a Torquatus is never born into our age. You ask the purport of this declaration? You yourself shall point my moral, most capable of men; the state owes you the rewards which history applauds when granted to the great men of the past. [2] Men ignorant of the facts had best refrain from carelessly conceived opinions; they had best abandon the obstinate habit of looking up to the men of old time and down on those of our own day. It is abundantly clear that the recognition which the state owes you is now long overdue. Yet what is there to wonder at in this, when a race of uncivilized allies directs the Roman power, yes, and bids fair to bring it crashing to the ground? We have men of rank and valour who excel anything we ourselves could hope, or our enemies believe. Aye, and they do the old deeds; but the reward is not forthcoming. Farewell.

Letter 3.9: To his friend Riothamus

c. AD 472

I WILL write once more in my usual strain, mingling compliment with grievance. Not that I at all desire to follow up the first words of greeting with disagreeable subjects, but things seem to be always happening which a man of my order and in my position can neither mention without unpleasantness, nor pass over without neglect of duty. Yet I do my best to remember the burdensome and delicate sense of honour which makes you so ready to blush for others' faults. [2] The bearer of this is an obscure and humble person, so harmless, insignificant, and helpless that he seems to invite his own discomfiture; his grievance is that the Bretons are secretly enticing his slaves away. Whether his indictment is a true one, I cannot say; but if you can only confront the parties and decide the matter on its merits, I think the unfortunate man may be able to make good his charge, if indeed a stranger from the country unarmed, abject and impecunious to boot, has ever a chance of a fair or kindly hearing against adversaries with all the advantages he lacks, arms, astuteness, turbulences, and the aggressive spirit of men backed by numerous friends. Farewell.

Letter 3.10: To his friend Tetradius

AD 461-7

IT is a most laudable trait in the character of younger men when they resort to more experienced heads in questions of perplexity; as the honourable Theodoras now does. He is a man of good family, but quite as much ennobled by his admirable modesty as by his high descent. My letter introduces him to the source of humane letters, I mean the pure fount of your erudition, to which he is setting out with the most commendable ardour, hoping to learn much himself and perhaps bring away as much to impart to others. [2] Should even an experience like yours fail to give him all the help he needs against such factious and powerful opponents, at all events your skill and advice will stand him in good stead. Unless you wish me to conclude that you regard our joint petition as troublesome and importunate, justify his hopes of you and this testimonial of mine by a favourable reply, so that the cause and wavering fortunes of this suppliant may be fortified by your salutary counsel. Farewell.

Letter 3.11: To his friend Simplicius (No indication of date)

A KIND of fatality attends my hopes, and you still grudge us a sight of you. But, most excellent of men, we need not therefore regard you as one whose memorable actions must necessarily escape our notice. For all our people, the notables included, hail you with one accord as the model of all that a father should be, even in the select and critical society in which you move. [2] The manner in which you have brought up your daughter, and chosen a husband for her, confirms the opinion of our friends; and the accomplishment of your desires in this union must have raised in your mind an agreeable uncertainty whether you have most excelled in the choice of the one or the education of the other. On that score, venerable parents, you may wholly set your minds at rest; you surpass every one because your children surpass even you. Please, therefore, excuse my earlier letter; it was negligent of me not to have sent it before I did, but the dispatch of it, I fear, betrayed the chatterer. My officiousness will lose its blemish of loquacity if you condone the impertinence of this greeting by sending me an answer. Farewell.

Letter 3.12

To his nephew Secundus c. A. D. 467 [1] I HAVE dreadful news. Yesterday profane hands all but desecrated the grave where my grandsire and your great-grandsire lies, but God's intervening arm stayed the accomplishment of an impious act. The cemetery had for years been overcrowded with burned and unburned burials, and interment there had long ceased. But snows and constant rains had caused the mounds to settle; the raised earth had been dispersed, and the ground had resumed its former even surface. This explained how it was that some undertaker's men presumed to profane the spot with their grave-digging tools just as if it were unoccupied by human bodies. [2] Must I relate what happened? They had already unturfed the ground, so that the soil showed black, and were piling the fresh sods upon the old grave. By a mere chance I happened to be passing on my way to Clermont, and saw this public outrage from the top of a neighbouring hill. I gave my horse his head, and dashed at full speed over the intervening ground, flat or steep was all the same to me; I grudged even those brief moments, and sending a shout before me, stopped the infamy even before I myself reached the scene. The villains, caught in the act, were still hesitating whether to make off or hold their ground, when I was upon them. It was wrong, no doubt, but I could not allow them an instant's impunity;

on the very grave of our beloved ancestor I gave them such a trouncing as should in future secure the dead from molestation, and safeguard the pious care of the survivors. [3] I did not reserve the case for the judgement of our good bishop, considering it best for the common advantage not to do so; I knew too well the strength of my own case, and his gentle nature; he was certain to judge me with too much severity, and these fellows with too great a lenience. To satisfy his right to be informed I did explain the whole affair after I had resumed my journey, and this upright and holy man gave me far more than the mere absolution I expected; he extolled my righteous indignation, declaring that in his opinion men who perpetrated so audacious a deed deserved the death our forefathers would have inflicted. [4] The incident should help to prevent any similar mischance in future, and I beg you to see that the disturbed earth is at once raised to a mound again, and to have a smooth flat slab placed upon it at my expense. I have deposited a sum of money with the venerable Gaudentius to cover the cost of the stone and of the mason's labour. The verses which I enclose were composed the night of the occurrence; of course they are not finished to perfection; I was too busy with preparations for the road.

[5] Such as they are, please have them carved on the tomb with the smallest possible delay, and be specially careful that the stonemason makes no errors either by negligence or with intention; for whatever the cause, the captious reader will put it all down to me. If you carry out this pious obligation I shall thank you no less heartily than if you were not certain to receive part of the praise and credit. For were I, your uncle, no longer with you, the whole responsibility of this duty would have devolved on you as the next descendant after myself. 'A grandson not all unworthy of such a grandsire, I dedicate to him, though all too late, this epitaph, my father and my paternal uncles being dead, that you, O passer by, may never tread on unmounded earth, unwitting of the reverence due to him who is buried in this grave. Here lies Apollinaris, who, having ruled all Gaul, was gathered to the bosom of a mourning country. He was learned in the law and helpful to his kind above all other men. He laboured for the land, and for the State, and in the cause of eloquence; and, example perilous to others, he dared be free under the rule of tyrants. But this stands as his chief title to fame, that of all his race he was the first to purify his brow with the sign of the cross and his limbs with baptismal water; he first abandoned the old sacrilegious rites. This is the highest glory, this the transcendent virtue, if a man outstrip in hope those whom he equals in honours, and is placed by his desert above his fathers though on earth his titles were the same as theirs.'

[6] I know well that this epitaph is unworthy of our accomplished ancestor; yet methinks the souls of the lettered do not refuse a poetic tribute. And neither of us need regard as too belated the pious duty which we have now fulfilled in our quality as heirs in the third and fourth degree. How many revolving years rolled by before Alexander celebrated funeral rites for Achilles' shade, or Julius Caesar for the shade of that Hector whom he treated as an ancestor of his own? Farewell.

Letter 3.13

To [his son] Apollinaris c. A. D. 469 [1] THE love of purity which leads you to shun the company of the immodest has my whole approval; I rejoice at it and respect it, especially when the men you shun are those whose aptitude for scenting and retailing scandals leaves nothing privileged or sacred, wretches who think themselves enormously facetious when they violate the public sense of shame by shameless language. Hear now from my lips that the standard-bearer of the vile troop is the very Gnatho of our country. [2] Imagine an arch-stringer of tales, arch-fabricator of false charges, arch-retailer of insinuations. A fellow whose talk is at once without end and without point; a buffoon without charm in gaiety; a bully who dares not stand his ground. Inquisitive without insight, and three-times more the boor for his brazen affectation of fine manners. A creature of the present hour, with ever a carping word ready for the past and a sneer for the future. When he is after some advantage, no beggar so importunate as he; when refused, none so bitter in depreciation. Grant his request and he grumbles, using every artifice to get better terms; he moans and groans when called on to refund a debt, and if he pays, you never hear the end of it. But when any one wants a loan of him he lies about his means and pretends he has not the wherewithal; if he does lend, he makes capital out of the loan, and bruits the secret abroad; if debtors delay repayment he resorts to calumny;

when they have absolved the debt he tries to deny receipt. [3] Abstinence is his abomination, he loves the table; but a man who lives well wins no praise from him unless he treats well too. Personally, he is avarice itself; the best of bread is not for his digestion unless it is also the bread of others. He only eats at home if he can pilfer his viands, and send them off amid a storm of buffets. He cannot indeed be wholly denied the virtue of frugality; he fasts when he cannot get himself invited. Yet with the light perversity of the parasite, he will often excuse himself when asked; on the other hand, if he sees that men avoid him, he will fish for invitations. [4] If left out he grows abusive; if admitted, unbearably elate: no blow descends on him unexpected. If dinner is served late, he falls like a bandit upon the dishes; if appetite is stilled too soon, he falls to lamentation. Thirst unquenched makes him quarrelsome; drunkenness makes him sick. If he banters others, he grows scurrilous; if others banter him, ungovernable; take him for all in all, he is like the filth in sewers, the fouler the more you stir it. His life brings pleasure to few, love to none, contemptuous mockery to all. He is one to burst bladders or break canes upon, one whose thirst for drink is only excelled by his thirst for scandal;

exhaling loathsomeness, frothing wine, uttering venom, he makes one doubt for what to hate him most, his unsavouriness, his drunken habits, or his villany. [5] 'But', you may say, 'perhaps a fair complexion lends a colour to a vile nature; perhaps his charm of person redeems ineptitude of mind; the man may have elegance or exquisite taste; he may create a good impression on those who meet him.' In point of fact, his person is fouler and more unsightly than a corpse rolled half-burnt from the pyre when the brands have settled----such a thing as a very undertaker's slave 2 could not bring himself to put back. He hardly sees out of his; eyes, which, like the Stygian lake, roll waters down through darkness. [6] His ears are elephantine; an ulcered skin surrounds each aperture with indurated waste, either helix is bossed with suppurating tumours. His nose is broad at the nostril and narrow at the bridge, strait for his own olfactory ends, but for the spectator a cavernous vision of horror. He obtrudes a face with leaden lips and a bestial rictus, with purulent gums and brown teeth; a foul mephitic odour breathes from his decayed and hollow teeth, enhanced by eructations from the feasts of yesterday and the bilge of his excesses at the board. [7] A forehead too he flaunts hideous with creases and distension of the brows. He grows a beard which age vainly whitens, since Sylla's malady 1 keeps it black.

His whole face is as pale as if it were ever dolorous with infesting shades. I spare you the hulking residue, gout-ridden, fat and flabby. I spare you his weal-furrowed skull, covered with almost as many scars as hairs. I spare you the description of a nape so short that when his head is thrown back it seems to merge into his shoulder-blades. [8] The sunken carriage, the lost grace and vigour of his arms, the gouty hands bound cestus-like with greasy poultices; all these I spare you, so too the acrid hircine armpits that entrench his sides, and pollute the air for every nostril near him with a reek three times more pestilent than that from Ampsanctus' cave. And breasts collapsed with adiposity horrible on a man's body even in mere protuberance, but now hanging like a mother's. And the pendulous folds of the abdomen about genitals thrice shameful in their debility, a foul creased covering worse than what it hides. [9] Why should I tell of his back and spine? True, the ribs do sweep round from the vertebral joints and cover the chest, but the whole branching structure of bones is drowned under a billowing main of belly. I pass over the fat reins and buttocks which make even his paunch look insignificant in comparison. I pass the bent and withered thigh, the swollen knees, the slender hams, the horny shanks, the weak ankles, the small toes and enormous feet.

As I have drawn him, he is horrible enough in his deformity, a monster from whom his infinite noisomeness drains half the blood and life, who cannot sit a litter or walk a yard, however much they prop him. But his tongue is more detestable still than his other members. [10] He keeps it busy in the service of the vilest prurience; but it is most dangerous of all to patrons with anything to hide. For those in luck he belauds, but those who are unfortunate he betrays; let a tempting moment but urge to disclosure of a friend's secret, and instantly this Spartacus will break all bars and open every seal. He will mine with the unseen tunnels of his treachery the houses which the rams of open war have failed to breach. This is the fashion in which our Daedalus crowns the edifice of his friendships, sticking as close as Theseus in prosperity; but when adversity comes, more elusive than any Proteus. [11] The more you avoid even a first introduction to such company the better you will please me; especially to those so shameless that they talk like degraded players at the booths, and know neither bar nor bridle. For when a man exults in leaving all seemliness and decency behind, and fouls a loose tongue with the dirt of all lawless licence, be sure his heart is no less filthy than his language. You may find an evil liver with a serious tongue; the foul tongue and virtuous life are very rarely allied. Farewell.

Letter 3.14: To his friend Placidus

After AD 477

THOUGH your loved Grenoble holds you far from me, I learn from a sure channel----your former hosts---- that you are kind enough to prefer my trifles in prose or verse to all the other volumes on your shelves. It goes without saying that it gave me pleasure to hear how my writings occupy your leisure; but I understand well enough that it is really affection for the author and not the quality of his work which procures you this delight. My debt is all the greater; friendship wins me the honour which you could not honestly give the composition. [2] For the rest, I have not yet considered what definitive reply I shall make to the detractors of my work. The self-appointed critic absorbs a sound or unsound style with equal appetite; he cares no more that the world should exalt his favourite than that it should despise the object of his mockery. And so we see the fine construction, the comeliness and grandeur of our Latin tongue exposed to contemptuous criticism of idle quidnuncs; minds careless and so flippant as this want books only to carp at; their use for literature is a mere abuse. Farewell.

Book IV

Letter 4.1

To his friend Probus A.D. 461-7 [1] You married my cousin 1, whence the first and principal tie between us; the cousinly relationship often leads to a stronger, purer, and more unmixed affection than that between two brothers. For when brothers' quarrels over property are once appeased, their children have no longer cause for disagreement, and so it often happens that cousins are the more deeply attached; the enmities arising from the partition of estates are over, the tie of blood relationship remains. The second link between us is intellectual, and formed by a similarity of studies; our literary taste is identical; we praise and blame the same things; a style approved or disapproved by one produces the same impression on the other. [2] But I am presumptuous in venturing a comparison between my judgement and yours. It is common knowledge among young and old that you were my real master, though we were nominally both pupils of another. You were everybody's teacher in every branch of literature. All of us learned from you, except those who had not the brains, or could not do themselves proper justice: our epic poets derived from you their lofty vein, our comic poets their humour, our lyric poets their musical art; from you the orator drew his rhetoric, the historian his respect for truth, the satirist his pictorial gift, the grammarian his fidelity to rule, the panegyrist his plausibility, the sophist his gravity of style, the writer of epigram his petulance and point, the commentator his lucid method, the lawyer his obscurity. Heavens!

how proud our respective fathers used to be when they saw that Christ had given you grace to teach and me to learn, that you not only did what lay within your power but also enjoyed the doing of it, and so deserved a name for goodness no less than a learned reputation. [3] And indeed in your case Eusebius' house proved a veritable mint of the sciences and arts; you were there struck on a philosophical die, and to the delight of your own instructor were able to impart to the rest of us every phase of knowledge and of eloquent expression. Just as Plato the pupil was more expert than Socrates, so did you excel our good Eusebius. While he was maturing our tender, unformed and plastic youth with ruthless floggings, or trying to ground it on wholesome principles, there you were, a dialectician born, moving with Attic ease through all the categories of Aristotle.

[4] Yet how admirable his principles were after all, how precious in possession! If only some migratory philosopher could export them to the Sigambri on their marshes, or the Alans of the Caucasus, or the mare-milking Geloni, the horny hearts of all these stark and brutal folks, yes and all their frozen fibres, were surely thawed and softened, while we should cease to sneer and scoff, and tremble by turns at their stolidity and their ferocious natures, which now brood in bestial dullness, now burst into swift flame. [5] Since, then, our family connexion and our studies thus unite us, preserve the laws of friendship unshaken, wherever your abode may be; though my home is far from yours, let our hearts draw nearer by virtue of this affection, which I for my part will keep inviolate as long as breath remains in my body. Farewell.

Letter 4.2: Claudianus [Mamertus1] to the Lord Bishop Sidonius

AD 472

IF I could only meet you now and again, my dear lord, were it only for a short time, I should not have to look about on all sides for any kind of messenger whose goodwill or necessities might help me pay the debt of correspondence owed you. Numerous causes, all sad ones, prevent me from seeing you again; even an opportunity of writing comes rarely or not at all. Whether all this excuses me or not, you yourself must judge. [2] But in often favouring with your letters persons who either do not expect them, or deserve to get them less than I, you on your side are guilty of an offence against the laws of friendship which may not be committed with impunity. Though I have said little, I confess that it has wounded me never to have received from you any acknowledgement of the book 2 which you have deigned to allow me to publish under the auspices of your illustrious name. But perhaps you cannot spare even a few short moments for a friendship of such long standing as ours?

[3] I wonder if you will ever involve yourself in any interest which does not turn to other folks' advantage. When you propitiate God by prayer, you entreat Him not only for your friends but for men you have never seen; when you search out the mysteries of Holy Writ, the more deeply your own mind is imbued with doctrine, the fuller the stream which you impart to others. When you lavish your goods upon the poor, there is a sense in which you may be said to serve yourself, but your aim is the service of others. Not a single action of yours is so barren as to yield abundant fruit to your sole self and not to a host of other people as well. [4] No possible pretext, then, can be alleged by any stretch of fancy on which an intimate friend like myself should be deprived of his own especial fruit, while strangers in scores are allowed to eat of it in plenty. I suppose you follow the precedent of the giver in the Gospel, and accord to the unworthy but importunate what you deny to a hungering friend. But if you allow yourself to grow hardened in this habit, I shall take measures to assure your repentance. For if your taciturnity exceeds all reason, my communications shall do the same. It is quite evident that you will have to be punished by my letters, as I myself am punished by your silence. Farewell.

Letter 4.3

To Claudianus [Mamertus] A.D. 472 [1] You declare, most honoured master, that I have offended against the laws of friendship: you allege that though it is my turn to give you epistolary greeting, I have let my tablets and stylus lie, and no traveller's hand has been burdened with papyrus of mine inscribed with my assiduous wishes for your welfare. The suggestion is unfair; you cannot really suppose that any man on earth, with the least devotion to Latin letters, would lightly submit his compositions to the ordeal of being read to you; you, with whose accomplishments, but for the overwhelming privilege of antiquity, I should never rank either Fronto's gravity, or the fulminating force of Apuleius; for compared with you the Varros, both he of the Atax and he of Reate, and the Plinies, uncle and nephew, will always seem provincial. [2] In support of this opinion I have only to mention your new volume on the nature of the Soul, with all its wealth of evidence and mastery of diction. The dedication to me I regarded as an inestimable gift: the fame which my own books would never keep alive, would now be immortalized by yours. Great God! what a wonderful book it is, and of what authority! abstruse in subject, in exposition clear as day; in statement serried, expansive in discussion, and though barbed with many a point of syllogism, yet soft with vernal flowers of eloquence! [3] You have found ancient words which by their very age regain the charm of novelty; compared with these even a classic vocabulary seems obsolete.

And what is more, the style, so succinct in its short clauses, has yet an even flow; loaded with facts, concise in comment, these pages do not merely propound----they inform. It was once, and rightly, held the highest part of eloquence to condense much matter into a small space and aim at exhausting the subject before the paper. [4] And what a charming feature it is in your books, when you allow some relaxation in the sustained display of mastery and interpose most welcome graces amid the severities of argument; by this means the reader's attention, strained by following that exhaustive analysis of doctrine and philosophy, is suddenly relieved by the most delightful of digressions, comforting as harbours after open seas. O work of endless excellences! O worthy expression of a genius subtle without tenuity, which neither freshets of hyperbole swell, nor mean terms minish and abase! [5] And then the unrivalled, the unique learning conspicuous in so many fields, and used to hold its own with the great masters in the discussion of every art. It does not hesitate, if need be, to wield the plectrum with Orpheus himself, or the staff with Aesculapius, or the rule with Archimedes, the horoscope with Euphrates, the compasses with Perdix, the plummet with Vitruvius; it never ceases to explore the ages with Thales, or the stars with Atlas;

to study weight with Zetus, number with Chrysippus, or measure with Euclid. [6] I can only say that no man of our times produces his knowledge with more effect, in the stress of conflict with the adversary can point with more justice to his own share in maintaining the spirit and the letters of Greece and Rome. Here is a writer who has the perception of Pythagoras, the clear logic of Socrates; he can unfold a theme with Plato or involve it with Aristotle; the charm of Aeschines is his, and the indignation of Demosthenes; he is as fresh and vivid as Hortensius; he storms like a Cethegus; he is impetuous as Curio, cautious as Fabius; in finesse the equal of Crassus, in reserve of Caesar, in suasion of Cato, in dissuasion of Appius, in persuasion of Tully himself. [7] Compare him now with the holy Fathers; you find him instructive as Jerome, destructive as Lactantius, constructive as Augustine; soaring in flight like Hilary, in humility meek as John; a Basil in rebuke, in consolation a Gregory. He is fluent as Orosius, terse as Rufinus; he has Eusebius' gift of narrative and Eucherius' power to stir, Paulinus' rousing voice, the perseverance of an Ambrose. [8] And now for my opinion on your hymn. I find it at once admirable in brevity and richness of content, at once tender and exalted, in poetic charm and truth to history superior to any lyrics or dithyrambs that I know.

It is your peculiar merit that you observe each foot in the metre, each syllable in the foot, and each emphasis in the syllable; and in a restricted measure none too rich in opportunity, you contrive to include great opulence of words; the compressed, terse metre does not exclude long-drawn beauty of ornate diction. It seems mere play to you, with your tiny trochees and tinier pyrrhics, to surpass in effect not merely the Molossian and anapaestic ternary, but even the quaternary, the epitrite and Paeonian rhythms. [9] Your grand exordium overflows the customary strait limits, as a great gem is hardly confined in a poor setting; as the mettle of a strong steed flashes out, and he chafes on the bit if he is held in over rough and broken ground; so it is with you; you are conscious of a speed to which a proper field is denied. What more shall I say? I will assert that neither Athens was ever so Attic, nor the Muses so musical as Claudian, if indeed a long period of inaction has not robbed me even of my critical capacity. For in deference to the profession which has been thrust upon me, I am endeavouring step by step to acquire a new style of writing, while I unlearn my old one by leaps and bounds; little remains now of a good speaker, except that I am more than ever the indifferent poet. I must therefore beg your indulgence if, remembering who and what I am, I seldom blend my thin and parching rivulet with your mighty river. The whole world shall honour the music of your silver trumpet, music thrice blessed in finding neither rival nor equal, though it has sounded all these years over the earth, charming the ears and lips of peoples, while I, too, strove to spread its fame. But all that your servant now dares in public speech is to raise his voice among town-councillors and teachers or even among market-quacks; these are the majority now, and (with all apologies to the best among them), even in their ambitious efforts, but illiterately lettered. But as for you, who can ring the changes on verse and prose and write in metre or without it exactly when you please, your emulators will be few, and those only whom Apollo loves. Farewell.

Letter 4.4

To [his kinsmen] Simplicius and Apollinaris c. A.D. 472 [1] AT last I send the promised Faustinus, for whom you have been waiting; he is the father of a family, a noble by birth, and a man to be accounted one of the chief ornaments of our common country. In years he is a brother to me, in community of sentiment a friend. How often have he and I together blended grave and gay! how often, in the far-off days of our youth, played ball and dice together, and vied in leaping, running, hunting, or swimming, always honourable rivals because firmest friends! He was my elder, but only by a little; the difference did not so much bind me to defer to him, as make it a delight to follow; he too was more deeply charmed not to be given deference, but simply affection. Only with advancing years, and with his entry into the Church, has my old love for him insensibly passed into veneration. [2] This is the man through whom I greet you, in the ardent desire that I may see you very soon, if God will, and the state of the country permit. Unless, then, my wish is irksome to you, inform me, by return of this good messenger, in what places you expect to be, and when. I am firmly determined to shake myself free from all obstacles and hindrances of personal affairs, and allow myself the privilege of long and intimate hours in your society, if only some major force does not upset my plans, as I am half afraid it may. [3] You too might find it worth while to talk them over with Brother Faustinas in the light of probable events. I made him my envoy because I love him and know that he returns my feelings. If he justifies my good opinion, I shall be very thankful. All men set him high in their esteem; and perhaps he is none the worse for not being a perfect paragon. Farewell.

Letter 4.5: To his friend [Magnus] Felix

AD 474

I SALUTE you a second time by the same messenger as before. Your Gozolas (may I soon call him mine too!) acts once more as the carrier of my letter. Spare us both, therefore, the indignity of an open slight; for if you persist in silence, every one will think that you look down on me and on the destined bearer of your reply. [2] As on the last occasion, I ask nothing as to the state of public affairs, fearing it may be painful to you to announce unfavourable events at a time when fortune fails us. It would not be like you to send false news; and as there is nothing pleasant to record, I would rather learn of disaster from any one but my friends. Farewell.

Letter 4.6

To [his kinsman] Apollinaris A. D. 472 [1] I SENT you a verbal warning lately by the priest Faustinus, my old comrade and new brother in the ministry, and glad I am that you have listened to it. It is the root-principle of practical wisdom to avoid unnecessary risks; if a man takes them, and a rash course ends in trouble, it is futile to break out into lamentations and abuse Fate for the consequences of one's own bad management. [2] You ask the trend of these remarks. I confess I was much afraid that, at a time when all men felt anxiety, you might feel none; and that the house which stood solid as a rock through all these years might be shaken at last through a misplaced devotion. I feared that the solemnity to which the ladies of your family so looked forward might be spoiled for their gentle souls by these alarms, though I well know that true religion is so deeply implanted in their breasts that they would have rejoiced to suffer a sort of martyrdom in honour of the Martyr had anything untoward befallen upon the way. But I have less innocence, and therefore more distrust of events; amid such uncertainties I prefer the safer side; it takes little to make me join those who discover danger in the very heart of safety. [3] I therefore approve your action in putting off so perilous an expedition, and refusing to expose the fortunes of a family like yours to such a hazard. The journey, once undertaken, might possibly have prospered;

but I for one will never vote for the reckless kind of measure which only luck can justify. Providence, I doubt not, will grant a happy issue to our prayers, and under new blessings of peace we shall look back upon these tenors as mere memories; but those who wish to enjoy security in future must learn caution from the present hour. [4] Meanwhile, I draw your attention to the bearer's complaint of some wrong done him by one of your people, by name Genesius. If you find that facts bear out the grievance, I beg of you to do the plaintiff justice and grant him a quick return to his distant home. But if he has fanned up a flame of calumny out of culpable spite, the defendant can enjoy the foretaste of his discomfiture, when he thinks of his wanton accuser, wayworn and impoverished, bearing all for nothing the hard consequences of a rash accusation, and that at the very height of winter, when the ice is thick and the snow lies piled in drifts. The litigious are apt to find this a season when hearings are generally short, but there is plenty of time for suffering damage. Farewell.

Letter 4.7

To his kinsman Simplicius (Date not indicated) [1] 'You spur the willing,' 1 is the usual comment of the man who meant to do unasked the thing you ask of him. You ask how the quotation applies? The bearer of these lines insists on a letter of introduction from me, whereas, the moment I knew where he was going I should myself have begged the privilege of giving it before he opened his mouth, obliging him not so much from consideration for him as from my warm feeling towards yourself. For the rest, my messenger calculates that by doing me a service he will have deserved a good turn; he has obtained what he wanted, but without ever dreaming how close the bond is which unites you and me. [2] Miles away though I remain, I shall be able to picture his stupefaction on his arrival, when the mere fact that he comes from me secures him respectful welcome, and he finds no effectual use for a letter which it was really superfluous to solicit. I can see it all as if I were there; the novelty of everything to one whose wits are not of the sharpest; his confusion as a stranger invited to make himself at home, or as a nervous guest drawn into conversation, or as a countrified fellow called on to take his part in polite gaiety, or as a poor man set down at a sumptuous board.

It will be strange indeed to a man from these parts, where ill-cooked viands and too much onion afford the only fare, to find himself as nobly regaled as if he had eaten his fill all his days at Apician banquets, served by the rhythmic carvers of Byzantium. 3. Anyhow, whatever his merit or importance, he could not have better helped me to pay my debt of friendship. Men of his type are often almost beneath our notice; at the same time friends who, like ourselves, are thrown back on letters for their intercourse would lose many a chance of writing were they too particular about the person of their messengers. Farewell.

Letter 4.8

To his friend Evodius * A.D. 467 (?) [1] I WAS just setting out for a remote country district when your messenger handed me your letter, and told his acquaintances in confidence that you were on the point of visiting Toulouse in obedience to a summons from the King. This gave me an excuse to shake off the embarrassing crowd which delayed my early start, and allowed me to give you such reply as a traveller booted and spurred could attempt. [2] My servants had gone ahead at dawn to pitch my tent eighteen miles away at a spot with many conveniences for camping, a cold spring issuing from a wooded hill with a meadow of rich grass at the foot; a river in the foreground stocked with waterfowl and fish; and in addition to these advantages, almost on the bank, the new home of an old friend whose boundless hospitality is the same, whether you try to refuse it or not. [3] After stopping behind to do what you required, that I might send the messenger back at once from the end of the town, I found it was already more than four hours after dawn; the sun was well up, and his gathering heat had absorbed the heavy dews of night. The torrid air and our parched throats got worse and worse, and so cloudless was the sky that the only protection from the blazing heat was the dust we made ourselves. The long way was a weariness, stretching in full view for miles in front of us across the grassy plain;

before it had time to tire us, it already terrified by its prospect; it meant that our lunch would be late. [4] All this introduction is to convince you, honoured lord and brother, that when I obeyed your behests I had small time to spare and little leisure of mind or body. I return now to the substance of your letter. After the usual salutations, you asked a poem of twelve verses suitable for engraving on a large two-handled cup, the sides of which from foot to rim were fluted with six channels. [5] The verses you design, I suppose, for the hollows of the flutings, or, better still, if that seems more suitable, for the ridges between, and, as I gather, you intend to assure yourself an invincible protection for all your plans, actual or prospective, by offering the cup, enriched with this embellishment, to Ragnahild, the queen. I did your bidding then, not as I could have wished, but as best circumstances allowed. You must blame yourself for giving the silversmith time but the poet none; though you know perfectly well that in the literary smithy the verses forged upon the metric anvil want polishing no less severely than any metal. But all this is beside the mark; here is your poem: * 'The shell which bears Cythera behind the fish-tailed Triton, compared with this must yield its pride of place. Bend thy queenly head, exalted patroness, to our prayer; accept this humble gift; graciously look down upon Evodius who seeks thy favour;

make him great, and thine own glory shall grow greater. Thy sire and thy lord's sire were kings; royal too is thy lord, may thy son also reign a king, both by his father's side and after him. Happy water enclosed in this gleaming metal, reflecting a royal face yet brighter! For when the queen shall deign to touch it with her lips, the silver shall draw new splendour from her countenance.' If you love me well enough to make use of such idle stuff, conceal my authorship and properly rely for success on your own part of the offering. For in such a mart or such a school as this barbaric court, your silver page will get all the notice, and not my poor inscription. Farewell.

Letter 4.9

To his friend Industrius + c. A.D. 472 [1] I RECENTLY visited the illustrious Vectius, and was able to study his way of life at close quarters as leisurely as if I had nothing else to do. I found it well worth knowing, and therefore not unworthy of description. In the first place, and this may rightly be regarded as the highest praise of all, the whole household emulates the master's flawless purity of life. His servants are efficient, those in the country obliging, those at his town house friendly, obedient and contented with their lord. His table is open to the stranger no less than to his own clients; there reigns a large hospitality, and an even larger moderation. [2] It is of less moment that the man of whom we speak is without a rival in training a horse, judging a dog, or in bearing hawk afield; that his dress is always exquisite and his girdle to match, that all his accoutrements are splendid. The majesty of his gait accords with his gravity of mind, and as the first secures him consideration abroad, so the last maintains his dignity at home. His is an indulgence which does not spoil, a punishment without brutality, a tempered severity, stern but never dreadful. [3] With all this he is a regular reader of the Scriptures; even at meal times he enjoys this nutriment of the soul.

He studies the Psalms, and yet more frequently chants them, setting a new precedent by living after this fashion in martial dress, the complete monk in all but the monastic habit. Though he abstains from eating game, he indulges in the chase; to have the sport without the spoil accords with the secret delicacy of his religious feeling. [4] The comfort of his widower's life is his little daughter, sole pledge of his lost wife's love; he brings her up with the tenderness of a grandfather, a mother's sedulous care, a father's kindness. In addressing his servants he does not give way to violence, and he is not above taking their advice upon occasion; in investigating an offence he is never inquisitorial, he rules those under him by reason and not mere authority: you might take him for the steward in his own house. [5] All this virtue and moderation seemed to me to deserve recording for the benefit of others; the outlines of it at least should be common knowledge. It would be well for our age if every member of our sacred profession were stirred to emulation by the story irrespective of a garb which in these days often deceives the world. For be it said without offence to my own order, if only the good men among us manifest their individual qualities, I shall prefer the layman of priestly instincts to the priest. Farewell.

+ Translated by Hodgkin, ii. 340-2.

Letter 4.10: To his friend [Magnus] Felix

AD 477

IT is many years since I have written to you, my good lord, and this greeting breaks a long silence; I had not the heart to keep up the old frequent correspondence while I was living in banishment from my country, and my spirit was broken by the hard lot of an exile. You ought to have compassion on one who admits his delinquency as I do; for whosoever is brought low should go humbly and not attempt to preserve the same familiar footing as before with those towards whom affection may be less in place than reverence. That is why I have said nothing so long, and why, after the arrival of my son Heliodorus, I could at least acquiesce in your silence, though I could hardly be expected to regard it with satisfaction. [2] You used to say, in jest, that you stood in positive awe of my eloquence. Even were it seriously meant, the ground for that excuse is gone; for as soon as I had finished my volume of Letters, which, though I say it, was a careful piece of work, I reverted to the every-day style in everything else. And indeed my fine style itself is much on the same level; for what is the use of giving finish to phrases which will never see the light? If, however, you are faithful to an old friendship and allow our correspondence once more to follow its former course, I too will return to the old track and be as communicative as ever. Nay more, if Christ will guide my steps and my patron 1 on his return will only sanction my departure, how eagerly will I fly to meet you wherever you may be, and revive by my presence a friendship which my negligent pen has left to languish. Farewell.

Letter 4.11

To his friend Petreius * c. A.D. 473 [1] I MOURN the loss of your great uncle Claudianus, snatched from us only the other day; it is the loss of our age; perhaps we shall never see his. like again. He was a man of wisdom, prudence and learning; eloquent, and of an active and ingenious mind above all his compatriots and contemporaries. He was a philosopher all his days without prejudice to his faith. It was only by his faith, and by his adoption of ordinary dress, that he dissociated himself from his friends of the Platonic school; for he never let his hair and beard grow long and would make fun of the philosopher's mantle and staff, sometimes with much bitterness. [2] How delightful it used to be when a party of us would visit him just for the pleasure of hearing his opinion! With what freedom from diffidence or pretence would he at once open his whole mind for our common benefit, delighted if some insoluble and thorny point arose to prove the vast resources of his knowledge! If there were many of us, he expected us all, of course, to listen, but nominated a single spokesman, probably the one whom we ourselves should have chosen; then in his methodical way, now addressing one, now another, and giving each his turn, he would bring forth all the treasures of his learning, not without the accompaniment of trained and appropriate gesture. [3] When he had finished, we would put our adverse criticisms in syllogistic form; but nothing was admitted which was not well considered and susceptible of proof, for rash objections he would at once demolish. Most of all we respected him for his tolerance of some men's persistent dullness of apprehension. It amounted almost to an amiable weakness; we could admire his patience, but it was beyond our imitation. Who could shrink from consulting on any recondite point a man who would gladly suffer in argument the stupid questions of the ignorant and the simple?

[4] So far as to his intellectual interests. It is beyond my power adequately to extol him in other relations of life. Mindful in all things of our weak mortal nature, he was always ready with consolation, helping the clergy by his deeds, the people by his words, mourners with exhortation, the destitute with words of comfort. He gave the prisoner money; he fed the hungry, he clothed the naked. To enlarge upon these things were indeed vanity of repetition. He was poor in this world's goods, but the good deeds with which he richly endowed his soul he concealed from notice in the hope of a better reward hereafter. . . . [5] For his elder brother the bishop 1 he had the most affectionate regard; he reverenced him as a father, he loved him as a son. And the brother in his turn looked up to him with boundless admiration, knowing that he had in him a counsellor in every disputed question, a representative in his churches, an agent in business matters, a steward on his farms, a registrar of all ecclesiastical dues, an associate in his reading, an interpreter in difficulties of exposition, a travelling companion upon his visitations. They were the very exemplars of brotherly affection, with an absolute confidence in each other. [6] But why do I add fuel to the flame of a sorrow which it was my purpose to assuage? I meant to have begun by saying that I have written an elegy to this ungrateful shade----the phrase is Virgil's, as you know, and applied to the dead, who can render no man thanks. They are sad lines full of sorrow; the writing of them was no light task to one who has lost the habit of composing; but grief heavy with rising tears moved me from my natural indolence. This is the elegy:

'Beneath this sod lies Claudianus, at once the glory and grief of his brother Mamertus, the wonder and supreme pride of the bishops. In three fields of learning he was a master and a shining light, the Roman, the Greek, and the Christian; all of them as a monk in his prime he made his own by secret discipline; he was orator, logician, poet, commentator, geometer, musician; skilled also to loose the bonds of disputation, and with the sword of the word dissect the sects that harass the Catholic faith. Well was he skilled to chant psalms and lead a choir; for his grateful brother he taught the trained groups of singers to chant before the altar. His was the choice that at the yearly conclave appointed the passages to be read in season. A priest of the second order, he eased his brother's shoulder of the bishop's burden; for while the other bore the insignia of pontifical rank, it was he who undertook the labour. But thou whoe'er thou art that grievest, O kindly reader, over the thought that of such a man nothing now survives, wet not this marble with thy tears: the mind and its renown come not down into this grave.'

[7] Such are the lines that I composed over the remains of this brother of my soul, as soon as I reached the spot. For when they buried him I was away, though absence did not wholly rob me of the longed opportunity for tears. For while I was pondering what to write, my heart swelled to overflowing; I gave it rein, and over my epitaph I wept as others had wept above the tomb. I write this to you for fear you should imagine that my devotion is only to living friends, and censure me as one who thinks less tenderly of those who are gone than of those who are yet alive. And indeed, in days when hardly a trace of loyalty remains among survivors, you might well be pardoned for counting as a small company those who are faithful to the departed. Farewell. * Most of this letter is translated by Guizot, Histoire de la civilisation en France, ed. 1846, i. 167-8. See also Fertig, Part iii, p. 10.

Letter 4.12

To [his kinsmen] Simplicius and Apollinaris* c. A.D. 472 [1] THE excitable mind of man is like nothing so much as a wrecking sea; it is lashed to confusion by contrary tidings as if it bred its own rough weather. A few days ago, I and the son whom we both regard as ours were together enjoying the admirable Hecyra of Terence. Seated at his side as he studied, I forgot the cleric in the father; to increase his ardour and incite my docile scholar to a more perfect appreciation of the comic rhythms, I had in my own hands a play with a similar plot, the Epitrepontes 1 of Menander. [2] We were reading, and jesting, and applauding the fine passages ---- the play charmed him, and he me, we were both equally absorbed, ---- when all of a sudden a household slave appears, pulling a long face. 'I have just seen outside', he said, 'the reader Constans, back from his errand to the lords Simplicius and Apollinaris. He says that he delivered your letters, but has lost the answers given him to bring back.' [3] No sooner did I hear this, than a storm-cloud of annoyance rose upon the clear sky of my enjoyment; the mischance made me so angry that for several days I was inexorable and forbade the blockhead my presence; I meant to make him sorry for himself unless he restored me the letters all and sundry, to say nothing of yours, which as long as I am a reasonable being I shall always want most because they come least often.

[4] However, after a time my anger gradually abated; I sent for him and asked whether, besides the letters, he had been entrusted with a verbal message. He was all a-tremble and ready to grovel at my feet; he stammered in conscious guilt, and could not look me in the face, but he managed to answer: 'Nothing.' The message from which I was to have received so much instruction and delight, had been all consigned to the pages which had been lost. So there is nothing else for it; you must resort to your tablets once more, unfold your parchment, and write it all out anew. I shall bear with such philosophy as I may this unfortunate obstacle to my desires until the hour when these lines reach you, and you learn that yours have never yet reached me. Farewell.

Letter 4.13

To his friend Vectius c. A.D. 472 [1] NOT long ago I went to see the church of Chantelle at the request of the excellent Germanicus, who is clearly the personage of the place. Though he now has sixty years behind him, he cultivates such bravery of fashion that not content with growing younger, he gets more boyish every day. His clothes fit close, his boots are tight, his hair is cut wheel-fashion; the tweezers have searched the depths of all his wrinkles to get every single hair out of his face. [2] Heaven has given him strong and well-knit limbs, an unimpaired sight, an easy and rapid gait; his teeth are complete and his mouth wholesome. He has a perfect digestion, an even circulation, a sound heart and lungs, his loins are free from stiffness, his liver from congestion. His hand is firm, his back straight, endowed with the health of youth, all he asks for age is its proper privilege of respect. [3] God has indeed shown him peculiar mercies. But on that very account I beg, nay, I enjoin you, as a neighbour and intimate friend, to give him a piece of that advice which a character like yours invests with such authority: tell him not to put his trust too much in such unstable things, or fancy himself immune from all decay; tell him it is high time for him to embrace religion, to gather strength from innocence reborn, and by good deeds to become a new man in his old age.

[4] Tell him that few of us are free from secret faults, and it were well for him to pour forth full and open satisfaction for all the hidden offences which memory can recall. A man who is a priest's son and has a son of his own a bishop, must sanctify his own life, or he will be even as a rosebush. Of roses born, and bearing the same, he comes between the old bloom and the new; and the briery thorns about him may be likened to his wounding sins. Farewell.

Letter 4.14: To his friend Polemius

AD 477

CORNELIUS TACITUS your ancestor, consular in the reigns of the Ulpians, in his history introduces a German Commander as saying, 'My acquaintance with Vespasian goes back to old days, and while he was a private person we were called friends.' You ask the object of this preface. To remind you that your position as a public man ought not to involve neglect of private friendships. Almost two years ago, our old regard for you rather than our satisfaction at your new dignity, led us to rejoice over your elevation to the post of praetorian prefect in Gaul. But for the misfortunes of the Empire, nothing would satisfy us but the enrichment of everybody and every province by the various benefits of your administration. [2] And now that proper feeling prevents us from asking what it is beyond your power to grant, I should like to know what generosity you would have shown us in deed, when in word you have proved so obstinately avaricious. For if I compare you with your ancestors, I must consider you more than the equal of Tacitus in eloquence, and in poetry above Ausonius. If this new prefecture has turned a philosopher's head, remember the line:

We too have served for name and fame. [3] But if you scorn the lowliness of our profession because we priests voluntarily lay bare before Christ, the Healer of human lives and fortunes, the ugly sores of the sick heart, which in us are at least unswollen by pride, however much they may have hitherto offended for want of proper tending, I would have you know this, that it is one thing for a man to stand before the magistrate in the forum, another thing for him to stand before the Judge of all the world. The offender who avows his crime to you is condemned; but among us the same confession made to God is absolved. It is therefore abundantly clear that you judges of this world are wrong in fastening guilt on him who is amenable to another jurisdiction than yours. [4] You cannot therefore any longer ignore the force of my complaint; whether your prosperity makes you forget old friendship, or only neglect it, the result in either case is almost equally bitter to me. If, then, you have any serious thoughts of the future, write to me as to a priest; if of the present, as to a colleague. There is a virtue which never disdains an old friend for a new one; if it was born in you, develop it; if not, at once implant it in your heart. Otherwise you will appear to treat your friends as one does flowers, which are only cherished as long as they are fresh. Farewell.

Letter 4.15

To his friend Elaphius After A.D. 472 [1] MAKE ready a great feast, and couches to receive a great company. By numerous roads parties yet more numerous converge upon you, for since the date of your coming dedication is now universally known, all our good friends are bent upon invasion. Your letter tells us that the baptistery so long in the builder's hands is now ready for consecration. We must all keep festival in honour of the faith that we own, and some of us for other causes too; you to celebrate the accomplishment of your vow; I to do my part as bishop; and many others to show their recognition of your enterprise. For indeed you set a great precedent, erecting a new fabric in an epoch when other men have hardly courage to repair an old one. [2] For the future I pray that as your present vow is paid, you may make new vows to the glory of God to be redeemed in coming prosperous years; and that, too, not as the expression of a concealed faith, but of manifest conversion. I further pray that in happier times than these Christ may grant my own desire and the hope of the people of Rouergue, and that you who now offer an altar for your own soul's weal, may then offer the holy Sacrifice for theirs. [3] Though the days draw in with the late autumn, and leaves from every tree rustle in the anxious traveller's ear; though your castle of the mountain crags is hard to reach when winter is so near, yet with Christ to guide my steps I shall traverse your rugged mountain flanks; I shall not shrink from rocks beneath or overhanging snows; no, not even if the way winds in spirals up the long slopes and returns continually upon itself. For should there be no festivities after all, yet you are one of those for whom, to use the words of Tully, a man would even tramp to Thespiae. Farewell.

Letter 4.16: To his friend Ruricius (No indication of date)

PATERNINUS has given me your letter; I can hardly say whether it pleases most by wit or charm. It presents such eloquence, such fragrant flowers of diction, that your progress is clearly due to something more than an acknowledged study: you must be working in secret as well. The abstraction of a book of mine to copy, for which you so apologize, I regard as an act redounding to your credit, and requiring no excuse. What can you do really wrong, when even your faults are laudable? [2] I am not the least vexed at being played this little trick in my absence; it is no loss at all, but really a signal privilege. The volume you appropriated to your use has not therefore ceased to be my property; your knowledge has not been increased at the cost of other people's. On the contrary, you shall have full credit for your action, and rightly; for your nature has the quality of flame, which communicates itself entirely and yet remains entire; it is proper that you should act like your own element. Be no more uneasy, then; that were to betray a little too much uncertainty of your friend, who would only deserve the wound of blame were he vulnerable by the dart of envy. Farewell.

Letter 4.17

To his friend Arbogast c. A.D. 477 [1] YOUR friend Eminentius, honoured lord, has delivered a letter dictated by yourself, admirable in style, and bearing in every line the evidence of three shining virtues. The first is the friendliness which leads you to esteem the lowly talents of one so far away, and so anxious to avoid publicity. The second is the modesty which makes you over-sensitive to blame, but deservedly wins you praise. The third is the gentle humour which makes you in the wittiest way accuse yourself of writing wretched stuff, whereas you have drunk at the well-spring of Roman eloquence, and no draughts from the Moselle can take the taste of Tiber from your mouth. You have your conversation among barbarians, yet you permit no barbarism to pass your lips; in eloquence and valour you equal those ancient generals whose hands could wield the stylus no less skilfully than the sword. [2] The Roman tongue is long banished from Belgium and the Rhine; but if its splendour has anywhere survived, it is surely with you; our jurisdiction is fallen into decay along the frontier, but while you live and preserve your eloquence, the Latin language stands unshaken. As I return your greeting, my heart is glad within me that our vanishing culture has left such traces with you; continue your assiduous studies, and you will feel more surely every day that the man of education is as much above the boor as the boor in his turn above the beast.

[3] Were I to obey your wish and send you a commentary on some part of the Scriptures, it would be sorry verbiage; you would do far better to direct your request to the clergy of your own district. They are venerable in years, approved in faith, known by works; they are ready in speech and tenacious in memory, my superiors in all sublimer gifts. Even if we leave out of the account the bishop of your city, a character of supreme perfection, blessed in the possession and repute of all the virtues, you may far more appropriately consult on any kind of problem the celebrated fathers of the Church in Gaul; Lupus and Auspicius are both within your reach, and however inquisitive you may be, you will not get to the bottom of a learning such as theirs. In any case, you must pardon me for disobeying you in this matter, and that not only out of kindliness, but from simple justice; for if it is fair that you should escape from incompetence, it is equally right that I should avoid conceit. Farewell.