Letter 472: What have you done, Andronicus?
To Andronicus (356)
What a thing you have done, Andronicus! I wrote to you, but you showed it to others, and they made it public among the people here, and you have become for us the beginning of a war. Then, having committed such a wrong, instead of begging pardon, you bring accusations and perhaps call me a scoundrel because I write to you by way of Harmatos [a postal route], when you ought rather to marvel that I dared to write to you at all.
2. If, then, the Athenians still keep the Eleusinian rites, we will write again; but if you set out before the Eponymous Heroes [the public notice-board in Athens, before the statues of the ten eponymous tribal heroes] a question for anyone who wishes to learn, you will admit that you long for our silence.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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 (356)
Οἶον ἔδρασας, Ἀνδρόνικε; σοὶ μὲν ἐγὼ γέγραφα, σὺ δὲ
ἑτέροις ἔδειξας, οἱ δὲ εἰς τοὺς ἐνθάδε ἐξήνεγκαν, καὶ γέγονας
ἡμῖν ἀρχὴ πολέμου. εἶτα τοιαῦτα ἁμαρτὼν ἀφεὶς παραιτεῖ-
σθαι ἐγκαλεῖς καὶ πονηρὸν ἴσως καλεῖς, ὅτι σοι τὴν δι’ Ἅρ-
μάτος γράφω δέον θαυμάζειν ὅτι σοι γράφειν ἐτόλμησα.
2 εἰ μὲν οὖν ἀλλὰ Ἀττικοὶ τὰ Ἐλευσίνια, πάλιν
ἐπιστελοῦμεν· εἰ δὲ προθήσεις πρόσθε τῶν Ἐπωνύμων τῷ βου-
λομέιῳ μαθεῖν, ὁμολογήσεις τῆς σιωπῆς ἡμῶν ἐρᾶν.
Revision history
- 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
Related Letters
Malchus admired me, and I grew fond of Malchus.
What Boeotians have you been keeping company with, that you've lost your skill in rhetoric?
1. I heard of your unendurable loss, and was much distressed. Three or four days went by, and I was still in some doubt because my informant was not able to give me any clear details of the melancholy event.
On coming to Samosata I expected to have the pleasure of meeting your excellencies, and when I was disappointed I could not easily bear it. When, I said, will it be possible for me to be in your neighbourhood again? When will it be agreeable to you to come into mine?
So Aristainetus has become just one of the crowd -- the man who used to be one of the wise!