Letter 22
People who lack confidence in themselves seek letters of recommendation from me. But this case is different. I've given this letter to my friend Potitus [a fellow senator] on the condition that he recommend it, not the other way around. He's every bit as much one of your closest friends as I am.
Once he's presented himself to you in person, I'm afraid my excuse for staying behind won't be easily forgiven. But if I know your forgiving nature — and I've tested it thoroughly — you won't hold my absence against me by comparison with his arrival. Instead, you'll welcome him all the more warmly on behalf of us both. Farewell.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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At once and in haste, after your departure, I came to the town. Why need I tell a man not needing to be told, because he knows by experience, how distressed I was not to find you? How delightful it would have been to me to see once more the excellent Eusebius, to embrace him, to travel once again in memory to our young days, and to be reminded o...