Letter 212: I write in haste because haste is necessary.

To Andronicus. (360?) Though I already knew not a little about your governorship, Herodianus related to me more than I knew. The chief point was the love and labor concerning Berytus [Beirut], by which an addition was made both to its [the city's] importance and to its beauty, and a name accrued to you from both. So when he saw me delighting in it as though I were myself both the one who had done the work and the one who was being praised, he demanded as the wage for the pleasure I felt on account of your virtue the letter from us to you on his behalf; and I did not shrink from giving so just a wage, one pleasing to you as well. Enroll the man, then, among your friends, since we too do so, and try to do him some good; for neither shall we, if we have any power to act, hesitate to do so.

Ἀνδρονίκῳ. (360?) Οὐκ ὀλίγα μοι τῆς σῆς ἀρχῆς εἰδότι διηγήσατο ὧν ᾔδειν Ἡρωδιανὸς πλείω. κεφάλαιον δὲ ἦν ὁ περὶ τὴν Βηρυτὸν ἔρως καὶ πόνος, ὑφ’ ὧν τῇ μὲν Πατά τε καὶ κάλλους ἐγένετο προσ- θήκη, σοὶ δὲ ἀπ’ ἀμφοτέρωι ὄνομα. ὡς οὖν εἶδέ με γαν- νυθέντα καθάπερ αὐτὸν ὄντα τόν τε εἰργασμένον τόν τε ἐπαι- νούμενον ἀπῄτει μισθὸν τῆς διὰ τὴν σὴν ἀρετὴν ἡδονῆς τὴν ὑπὲρ αὑτοῦ πρὸς σὲ παρ’ ἡμῶν ἐπιστολήν, ἐγὼ δὲ οὐκ ἔφυγον μὴ δοῦναι μισθὸν οὕτω καὶ δίκαιον καὶ σοὶ κεχαρισμένον. ἔγγραφε δὴ τὸν ἄνδρα τοῖς φίλοις, ἐπεὶ καὶ ἡμε.ῖς, καὶ πειρῶ τι ποιεῖν ἀγαθόν· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἡμεῖς, εἴ τι ποιεῖν ἔχοιμεν, ὀκνή- σομεν.