Letter 451: You found an excellent guardian for your son in the good Tatianus -- a man skillful at spurring on teachers,...

LibaniusCaecilius|c. 357 AD|Libanius|AI-assisted
education books

To Caecilius. (355/56)

A fine guardian indeed you have found for the boy in the worthy Tatianus, a man formidable at rousing the teachers, at praising the diligence of the young, and at both detecting laziness and putting a stop to it. And so I bid you take heart, since Alexander will waste not even a little of his time, while this man directs toward him both his eye and his judgment.

But I am astonished that, although you provided the young man with a noble overseer, you keep the young man himself bound fast by the ears.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Καικιλίῳ. (355/56)

Καλόν γε ἐξεῦρες τῷ παιδὶ κηδεμόνα τὸν χρηστὸν Τα-
τιανὸν δεινόν γε ·διδασκάλους τε ἐπεγεῖραι καὶ νέων σπουδὴν
μὲν ἐπαινέσαι, ῥᾳθυμίαν δὲ καὶ ἰδεῖν καὶ παῦσαι. καὶ δή σε
κελεύω θαρρεῖν, ὡς οὐδὲ μικρὸν Ἀλέξανδρος παραναλώσει τοῦ
χρόνου τούτου τείνοντος εἰς ἐκεῖνον τό τε ὄμμα καὶ τὴν γνώ-
μην.

θαυμάζω δὲ ὅτι τὸν μὲν ἐπιμελητὴν ἐπορίσω τῷ νέῳ
γενναῖον, αὐτὸν δὲ τὸν νέον πρὸς τοῖς ὄις δήσας ἔχεις.

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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