'Cum omnia tuorum nihil obiter legam, sed inter solida et primaria collocem studia, Assem vero tuum sic attente perdisco, quomodo non quemlibet veterum. Nam ne transeunter intelligi possit, ipse delectis verbis, exquisitis sententiis, elaborata sermonis gravitate, postremo pondere et difficultate rerum tam alte petitarum peneque iam evanidarum vetustate providisti, quibus tamen si quis intendat oculos, contineatque atque infigat pressius, eam adfudisti lucem, sic propemodum deleta refecisti, ut tua verba dum versat, omnibus interea praeteritis seculis interversari videatur, et omnium regum, tyrannorum, gentium collustrare, numerare, velutque manu contrectare divitias, quod fere maius est, quam ut quibuslibet avaris contingat in suis.' (Rogers 1947, pp. 124-5, letter R65)
['I never skim any of your works, but study them seriously as works of the first importance. To your treatise, however, on Roman measures I gave very special attention such as I have given to no ancient author. For that it cannot be understood in any cursory way, you have provided by your careful choice of words, your wellbalanced sentences, the studied gravity of your diction, and not least by the serious and difficult nature of the matters you treat of – matters almost lost in antiquity, and requiring the deepest research. But yet if anyone will turn his eyes to what you have written and give it careful and continued attention, he will find that the light you have thrown upon your subject brings the dead past to life again. While he ponders your words, he will live in imagination through all the past ages, and will be able to gaze upon, to count and almost to take into his hands, the hoarded wealth of all kings, tyrants and nations, which is almost more than any misers have been able to do.' (translation from Rogers 1961, pp. 107-9, letter 21)]
