17. See Ambrose (tom. ii. Epist. xvii. xviii. p. 825-833).
The former of these epistles is a short caution; the latter
is a formal reply to the petition or libel of Symmachus.
The same ideas are more copiously expressed in the poetry,
if it may deserve that name, of Prudentius, who composed his
two books against Symmachus (A.D. 404) while that senator
was still alive. It is whimsical enough that Montesquieu
(Considerations, etc., c. xix. tom. iii. p. 487) should
overlook the two professed antagonists of Symmachus, and
amuse himself with descanting on the more remote and
indirect confutations of Orosius, St. Augustin, and Salvian.