DXIV (F XIII, 21)
TO SERVIUS SULPICIUS RUFUS (IN
ACHAIA)
ROME
M. Aemilius Avianius has always from his
earliest manhood shewn me attention and affection.
He is both a good and cultivated man, and worthy
of your favour in every kind of employment. If I
had thought that he was at Sicyon, and had I not
been told that he was still staying where I left
him at Cibyra, there had been no necessity for my
writing at any greater length to you about him.
For he would of himself have secured your
affection by his own character and culture without
anyone's recommendation, in as great a degree as
he enjoys mine and that of all his other friends.
But as I suppose him to be away, I commend with
more than common earnestness his
family at Sicyon and his property, especially his
freedman C. Avianius Hammonius, whom indeed I
commend to you on his own account also. For, while
he has earned my esteem by his remarkable loyalty
and fidelity to his patron, he has also done me
personally some valuable services, and stood by me
in the time of my greatest distress with a
fidelity and affection as great as though I had
myself liberated him. Accordingly, I beg you to
support Hammonius for himself; as well as in his
patron's business, and to go so far as to like and
reckon among your friends both his agent, whom I
am commending to you, and Avianius himself. You
will find him modest and serviceable, and worthy
of your affection. Good-bye.
ROME
