Letter 34

Here's Rusticus, barely freed from his business in Rome. I hope you'll forgive him the delay, for our friendship's sake — it wasn't laziness that kept him. It's hard to leave this city once you've arrived; if you want a sense of Rome's grandeur, Rusticus will seem to you to have come back remarkably quickly. But I'm not worried about that, since you're so naturally forgiving among your many virtues that you take minor lapses in stride. What I do earnestly ask is this: put as much effort into writing to me as the affection you feel for me deserves. Farewell.

£n tibi Rusticum vix urbanis negotiis absolutum, cui volo pro nostra amicitia 15 morarum culpam remittas. neque enim laboris fuga indulsit quieti. difficile est hinc abire, cum veneris; adeo si contemplari maiestatem urbis nostrae velis, dto tibi Rusti- cus videbitur revertisse. sed de hoc non laboro, quando ita es ingenio placabili inter reliqua virtutum, ut boni consulas errata leviora. illnd me orare inpensius convenit, tanta ut animo tuo scribendi cura sit, quanto me amore dignaris. vale. 20 XXXI (XXV) post a. 378.