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 DXX (F XIII, 27)

TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN ACHAIA)

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.