ABSTRACT
A reader might expect to find reflections on Roman society or excItmg descriptions of new experiences in the accounts of travel narrated by Symmachus in his Letters. That reader would be disappointed. Nor would that reader find a notion of travel as a means to personal or religious progress. Yet travel, with its inconveniences, its earthly pleasures and its opportunities for social interaction, figures prominently in many of the letters of this key figure in late Roman society. Symmachus was, despite his protests about disliking travel, a man in motion. His accounts of his travels advertised his ties to the world of the elite-friends, villas, patronage, pleasure. They also reveal the importance of his ties to the past of his family and of Rome. Thus, for Symmachus, travel and his accounts of it served to communicate his values and perspectives to other Roman aristocrats of the fourth century, many of whom shared his views.
