The Church Fathers · 384
The Third Relation
Relatio III
Quintus Aurelius Symmachus · c. 345 – c. 402
What it is
A prefect of Rome petitions the emperor to restore the altar of Victory to the senate house, speaking in the voice of Rome herself: this worship brought the world under our laws, and one road alone cannot lead to so great a mystery.
Why it lasted
The last formal defence of Roman public religion, answered immediately by Ambrose and refuted at length by Prudentius. Its plea that there is more than one road is the closest antiquity comes to an argument for toleration.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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