Letter 324

324. To Pasinicus the physician

It is a proof that you do not hold us as a thing of no account, that you greet us at once, so to speak, from the very doors of the entrance. Now, to meet with a friendly letter is itself a thing worth being eager for; but if what is written also accomplishes a need in matters of the greatest importance, it plainly becomes worth far more.

Know well, then, that Patricius, that man best in all things, carries upon his lips so many drugs of persuasion that—not only because you have written, but even were he to get hold of some Sauromatian or Scythian—he could easily persuade them of whatever he might wish. Yet those words of cheerfulness are not from the heart. For this is a posture long practised: men who, as far as words go, profess to be obliging and, supposedly, without affectation, and ready to entrust the matters concerning them to any court; but when they come to the business itself—may you not chance to be there.

But let these things be said by me to you, so that you yourself may know it, and—the man being in any case not easily led—you may further be persuaded, of your own accord, not to attend to the fair appearance of his words, but to wait for the proofs that come from the facts.