Letter 185: The admirable Mares was both my fellow student and my teacher -- for having grown alongside me, he rose to that rank.

LibaniusAndronicus, a general|c. 331 AD|Libanius|AI-assisted
education books

To Andronicus. (360)

The admirable Mares has been both a fellow-student with us and a teacher, for, having grown up from that time, he came to this position; and by these two claims it belongs to him to give orders, while we are under necessity to serve.

This man is concerned for Zeno, who is among those about the prefect, and who now comes to you to fare well, if you should wish it, and, even if you do not wish it, he does not love the other alternative; but I know that you will wish what is better, both holding my zeal in account and out of respect for that man whom I too revere.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.

Latin / Greek Original

Ἀνδρονίκῳ. (360)

Μάρης ὁ θαυμάσιος καὶ συμφοιτητὴς ἡμῖν γεγένηται
καὶ διδάσκαλος, αὐξηθεὶς γὰρ ἀπ’ ἐκείνου πρὸς τοῦτο ἦλθε,
καὶ δύο τούτοις <τοῖς> δικαιώμασι τῷ μὲν ὑπάρχει τὸ
τάττειν, ἡμῖν δὲ ὑπηρετεῖν ἀνάγκη.

μέλει δὲ τούτῳ Ζή-
νωνος, ὁ δέ ἐστι τῶν περὶ τὸν ὕπαρχον καὶ νῦν ἥκει παρὰ
σὲ εὖ τε πράξων, εἰ τοῦτο βούλοιο, καὶ μὴ βουλομένου τοῦτο,
θάτερον δὲ οὐκ ἔρα, ἀλλ’ οἶδ᾿ ὅτι βουλήσῃ τὰ βελτίω
μένος τε τοὐμὸν ἐν λόγῳ κἀκεῖνον αἰδούμενος ὃν καὶ ἐγώ.

Revision history

  1. 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import

    Initial corpus import from modern libanius retranslated v1.

    Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://github.com/OpenGreekAndLatin/First1KGreek/blob/master/volume_xml/libanius_10.xml

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