Unknown→Justinus, Prætor of Sicily|c. 476 AD|sidonius apollinaris
grief deathproperty economics
LETTER XXI
Sidonius to his dear Sacerdos and Justinus, greetings.
1. Your uncle Victorius, a man as distinguished as he was universally learned, composed verses with supreme power among his many accomplishments. The Muses have always been my care too, from boyhood. Now you come as heirs to your parent, by right as much as by desert. And so I, the poet's nearest neighbor by profession, yield to you who are his neighbors by blood. It is therefore most just that each of us should succeed the departed as he is connected to him. So keep the patrimony; give us the poems. Farewell.
EPISTULA XXI
Sidonius Sacerdoti et Iustino suis salutem.
1. Victorius patruus vester, vir, ut egregius, sic undecumque doctissimus, cum cetera potenter, tum potentissime condidit versus. mihi quoque semper a parvo cura Musarum; nunc vos parenti venitis heredes, quam iure, tam merito: ilicet ego poetae proximus fio professione, vos semine. ergo iustissimum est, ut diem functo sic quisque nostrum succedat, ut iungitur. ideoque patrimonia tenete, date carmina. valete.
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LETTER XXI
Sidonius to his dear Sacerdos and Justinus, greetings.
1. Your uncle Victorius, a man as distinguished as he was universally learned, composed verses with supreme power among his many accomplishments. The Muses have always been my care too, from boyhood. Now you come as heirs to your parent, by right as much as by desert. And so I, the poet's nearest neighbor by profession, yield to you who are his neighbors by blood. It is therefore most just that each of us should succeed the departed as he is connected to him. So keep the patrimony; give us the poems. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.