Writings
Of his many writings, the following have survived:
- Nine books of letters, published by his son. Many of the letters are notes extending to a few lines only, addressed to a wide circle of relations, friends, and acquaintances. They relate for the most part to matters of little importance. The most famous letter is the most highly finished and important piece in the collection, the celebrated epistle to "Valentinian, Theodosius, and Arcadius" entreating them to restore the Altar of Victory to its ancient position in the senate house.
- A collection of Relationes or official dispatches, which is chiefly composed of the letters written by him when prefect of Rome to the emperors under whom he served.
- Panegyrics, written in his youth, two on Valentinian I and one on the youthful Gratian.
- Fragments of various orations, discovered by Angelo Mai in palimpsests in the Ambrosian library and the Vatican.
According one of his letters (dated to 401), Symmachus also engaged in the preparation of an edition of Livy's Ab Urbe Condita. Seven manuscripts of the first decade of Livy's extensive work (books 1-10) bear subscriptions including Symmachus' name along with Tascius Victorianus, Appius Nicomachus Dexter, and Nicomachus Flavianus; J.E.G. Zetzel has identified some of their effects to this tradition of the transmission of this portion of Livy's work.
The style of Symmachus was widely admired in his own time and into the early Middle Ages, but modern scholars have been frustrated by the lack of solid information about the events of his times to be found in these writings. As a consequence, little of his work has been translated into English.
Read more about this topic: Quintus Aurelius Symmachus
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