Umquamne nos dei nutu, domine maior, una videbit ille ager tuus Octavianus, nec tuus tantum quantum amicorum? qui civitati fluvio mari proximus hospites epulis, te pascit hospitibus, praeter haec oculis intuentum situ decorus, primore loco, quod domicilium parietibus attollitur ad concinentiam scilicet architectonicam fabre locatis; tum sacrario porticibus ac thermis conspicabilibus late coruscans; ad hoc agris aquisque, vinetis atque olivetis, vestibulo campo colle amoenissimus; iam super penum vel supellectilem copiosam thesauris bibliothecalibus large refertus, ubi ipse dum non minus stilo quam vomeri incumbis, difficile discernitur domini plusne sit cultum rus an ingenium.
My honoured lord, will that Octavian property of yours ever, by Gods good pleasure, see us united? It is indeed not so much your property as the property of your friends. Close to the city, the river, and the sea, it feeds your guests with feasts and you with guests; moreover, its lay-out charms the eye of the beholder. In the first place the house rises high, with walls skilfully arranged so as to produce an undoubted architectural symmetry. Again, it sends forth a gleam far and wide from the chapel, the colonnades and the baths, which are all conspicuous. In addition, its fields and springs, vineyards and olive-groves, its entrance-court, its park, its hill present a most lovely view. Then, besides a well-stocked larder and abundant furniture, it is liberally filled with stores of books, amid which you expend as much energy on the pen as you give to the ploughshare, so that it is hard to decide whether the owners land or his mind has been the better cultivated.
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