Latin Texts & Translations

DX (F XIII, 17)

TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA) ROME

Manius Curius, ^[Note] who has a bank at Patrae has given me many weighty reasons for being attached to him. My friendship with him is of very old standing, dating from his first entrance into public life: and at Patrae on many previous occasions, and particularly during the late unhappy war, his house was put entirely at my disposal, and if there had been any occasion, I should have used it as my own. But my strongest tie to him is of what I may call a more sacred, obligation- is that he is a very close friend of my friend Atticus, and distinguishes him above everybody by his attentions and affection. If you are by any chance already acquainted with him, I think that I am too late in doing what I am now doing. For he is so cultivated and polite a

man, that I should regard him as already sufficiently recommended to you by his own Character. Yet, if this is so, I beg you earnestly that any inclination, which you have already conceived for him before getting my letter, may be enhanced to the highest possible degree by my recommendation. But if; owing to his retiring character, he has not put himself in your way or you have not yet become sufficiently acquainted with him, or if there is any reason of any sort for his wanting a warmer recommendation, I hereby recommend him to you, with a zeal as great and for reasons as sound as I could have for recommending anyone in the world. And I shall be acting in this as those are bound to act who recommend conscientiously and disinterestedly: for I shall be pledging my word to you, or rather I do hereby pledge my word and take upon me to promise, that the character of Manius Curius, and his culture no less than his honesty, are of such a nature that, if once he becomes known to you, you will think him deserving of your friendship and of such an earnest recommendation. I, at any rate, shall be exceedingly gratified, if I find that this letter has had the weight with you which, as I write, I feel confident that it will have.