DXX (F XIII, 27)
TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA)
Rome
I frequently send you letters of this kind, which are
replicas of each other, in thanking you for paying such
prompt attention to my letters of introduction. I have
done so in the cases of others and shall often, as I see,
have occasion to do so again. Nevertheless I will not spare
labour, and, as you jurisconsults are in the habit of doing in
your formulæ, I will in my letters "state the same case in a
different manner." Well then, C. Avianius Hammonius has
written to me with profuse thanks in his own name and in
that of his patron Æmilius Avianius, saying that neither he
himself, who was on the spot, nor the property of his absent
patron, could have been treated with greater liberality or consideration.
That was gratifying to me for the sake of those
whom I had recommended to you, induced thereto by our
very close friendship and union—for M. Æmilius is one of my
most intimate and closest friends, a man eminently attached
and bound to me by great services on my part, and about the
most grateful of all those who appear to be under some obligation
to me. But it is much more gratifying that you should
be so disposed towards me as to do more for my friends
than I perhaps could have done if I had been on the spot,
I presume, because I should have been more doubtful what
to do for their sake, than you are what to do for mine.
But this I do not doubt—that you feel that you have obliged
me. I only ask you to believe that those persons also are
grateful: I pledge you my word and solemnly assert that it
is so. Wherefore pray do your best that, whatever business
affair they have on hand, they may get it settled whilst you
are still governing Achaia. I am living on the pleasantest
and most harmonious terms with your son Servius, and derive
great pleasure from his natural abilities and signal industry,
as well as from his virtuous and straightforward character.