Letter 238: The poets, I think, were right about Eros when they called him invincible [a reference to the famous Sophocles...

To Modestus. The poets seem to me to have reflected well concerning Eros when they call him unconquerable, seeing that even Strategius, moved most powerfully from here, now leaving behind wife and children and the other things in which he takes delight, is running to behold your person. And yet he attempts to conceal his passion, as though he had hurried off on account of the tax-levies; but it has not escaped me that he has both made you his real business and, not unpleasantly, attended to that other matter as well. It is plain, then, that you will see him with kindly eyes, both for the rest and because you have in him an exact reporter of the colonnade, around which this man endured much heat and much smoke gladly, because it afforded you, through his own labors, the chance to acquire renown. For that which, in its first beginnings, gave no brilliant hope, this same thing, as it approaches completion, allows no age to pass it by in silence, but draws the gaze, and whoever has seen it has marveled. To you, then, belongs the whole city, and to this man you owe gratitude. For you conceived the design in your mind, and this man serves you in it. And it is a sufficient return if you both praise him and consider him to be just what we consider him. Our own verdict is that Strategius is a noble man, whom no one has ever surpassed in doing good; for in this way he is always seeking greater recompenses, and in seeking them there is no time when he has not found them.

Μοδέστῳ· (358/59) 16 Καλῶς μοι δοκοῦσιν οἱ ποιηταὶ περὶ τοῦ Ἔρωτος ἐσκέ- φθαι καλοῦντες αὐτὸν ἀνίκητον, ὅπου γε καὶ Στρατήγιος εὖ μά- λα ἐνθένδε κινούμενος νῦν γυναῖκα ἀφεὶς καὶ τέκνα καὶ τἄλλα οἶς ἥδεται τρέχει τὴν σὴν ὀψόμενος κεφαλήν. καίτοι κρύπτειν μὲν ἐπιχειρεῖ τὸ πάθος ὡς ὑπὲρ εἰσφορῶν δραμών, ἐμὲ δὲ οὐ λέληθε σὲ μὲν ἔργον θέμενος, οὐκ ἀηδῶς δὲ κἀκεῖνο θερα- πεύσας. εὔδηλον οὖν ὅτι αὐτὸν ἡμέροις ὄψει τοῖς ὄμμασι τά τε ἄλλα καὶ μηνυτὴν ἔχων τῆς στοᾶς ἀκριβῆ, περὶ ἣν οὗ- τος πολὺ μὲν καῦμα, πολὺν δὲ καπνὸν ἠνέσχετο χαίρων, ὅτι σοι παρεῖχεν ἐν τοῖς αὑτοῦ πόνοις κτήσασθαι δόξαν. ὃ γὰρ ἐν προοιμίοις οὐκ ἦν λαμπρᾶς ἐλπίδος, τοῦτο πρὸς ἐρχόμενον οὐδεμίαν ἡλικίαν ἐᾷ σιγῇ παρελθεῖν, ἀλλ’ ἕλκει τε τὰς ὄψεις καὶ ὅστις εἶδεν, ἐθαύμασε. σοὶ μὲν οὖν ὅλην τὴν πόλιν, σὲ δὲ τούτῳ προσήκει χάριν εἰδέναι. σὺ μὲν γὰρ εἰς νοῦν ἐβάλου τὸν κόσμον, σοὶ δὲ οὗτος διακονεῖ. ἔστι δὲ ἀρκοῦσα χάρις, ἂν ἐπαινῇς τε αὐτὸν καὶ νομίζῃς ὅπερ ἡμεῖς. ἡ δὲ ἡμετέρα ψῆφος Στρατήγιον ἄνδρα εἶναι γενναῖον, ὃν οὐδεὶς ἐνίκησεν εὖ ποιῶν· οὕτως ἀμοιβὰς ἀεὶ ζητεῖ μείζονας καὶ ζητῶν οὐκ ἔστιν ὅτε οὐχ εὗρεν.