Dialexis de novae et prius incognitae stellae inusitatae magnitudinis & splendidissimi luminis apparitione, & de eiusdem stellae vero loco constituendo ...

Cicero: It does not shame me to confess I do not know those things, and I do not know.

But since you approve of a parallax, and hold that this one we saw last year was further from the Earth than the Moon itself, and I—if indeed the foundations of the demonstration are true—have not learned to impugn them, I gladly yield to a better judgment, and I confess that regarding this, I do not know what I do not know. I concede that the things brought forth concerning the star shown to the Magi are said piously. But our sluggishness was to be stirred not so much by these portents as by the gravity of a divine command and punishment. The conjectures of some, who have written that the soul of the deceased shone at the pole, are more ingenious than provable. I suspect these were taken from Dio. For he reports regarding the Emperor Hadrian, in whose age such a star shone in the sky, that he had need of a human victim for I know not what magical arts, in the practice of which he was excessive and immoderate. When Antinous, whom he held in great affection, offered himself to this and met a voluntary death, a star of that kind was subsequently seen, which Hadrian was accustomed to call the soul of Antinous. But he whom the dark day took away, not lacking in virtue, was killed by force. And not as if a likeness or statue was placed for Antinous, but he was snatched to the stars, or rather to the spheres The Greek text implies a confusion between "stars" (asteras) and perhaps a specific term for the heavens or spheres (kirras).. But monuments are made for him throughout the world, no less firm than those by which Hadrian sought to celebrate Antinous. But let us dismiss these things. I wish you and your writing every success.