Letter 494: By admitting your wrong in not writing, you have stripped yourself of the right to accuse.

To Seleucus. (356) By admitting that you do wrong in not writing, you have deprived yourself of the right to bring an accusation. For I now become one of those who defend themselves, not one of those who have done wrong, if indeed the right of self-defense is granted by law. And besides, even in this way, by keeping silent, I was likely to stir you up to write. For if I had written to you while you were not sending letters, you would have luxuriated in it, while I would have lacked the things I longed for; but as it is, by not writing I have put a stop, through my own silence, to your evil of silence. And when you say that you have become barbarized, you are clearly speaking with irony and slandering Mena, whom indeed I am persuaded is present with you; so, just as I would not have endured the cicadas saying that they had after all turned into barbarians-the very creatures whom this very thing, their wonder at music, made into cicadas-so neither will Seleucus persuade me when he claims that his own voice has grown worse. For you indeed, both when you labor at words and when you do not labor, are winged with words, possessing, I think, this gift from nature: to flow always, and to do this with beauty besides. And the proof is the letter itself, written with every art.

Σελεύκῳ. (356) Ὁμολογῶν ἀδικεῖν τῷ μὴ γράψαι σαυτὸν ἀφῄρησαι τὸ κατηγορεῖν ἔχειν. ἐγὼ γὰρ ἤδη γίνομαι τῶν ἀμυνομένων, οὐ τῶν ἠδικηκότων, εἴ γε τὸ ἀμύνεσθαι νόμῳ δέδοται. πρὸς δὲ καὶ οὕτω σε κινήσειν ἔμελλον εἰς τὰ γράμματα σιγήσας. εἰ γὰρ ἔγραφον οὐκ ἐπιστέλλοντι, σὺ μὲν ἐτρύφας ἄν, ἐγὼ δὲ ὧν ἐπεθύμουν ἠπόρουν νῦν δέ σε τῷ μὴ γράψαι κακῶν τῇ ἐμαυτοῦ σιγῇ τὴν σὴν ἔπαυσα. βεβαρβαρῶσθαι δὲ ὅταν λέγης, εἰρωνεύῃ σαφῶς καὶ καταψεύδῃ τῆς Μηνὰς, ἣν δή σοι παρεῖναι πείθομαι ὥσπερ οὖν τῶν τεττίγων οὐκ ἂν ὴνε- σχόμην λεγόντων ὅτι ἄρα γένοιντο βάρβαροι, οὓς αὐτὸ τοῦτό γε τέττιγας ἐποίησε τὸ θαυμάσαι μουσικήν, οὕτως οὐδὲ Σέ- λευκος πείσει με φάσκων αὑτῷ χείρω γεγονέναι τὴν φωνήν. σὺ γὰρ δὴ καὶ πονῶν εἰς λόγους καὶ μὴ πονῶν ἐπτέρωσαι τοῖς λόγοις δῶρον, οἶμαι, τοῦτο παρὰ τῆς φύσεως ἔχων ῥεῖν ἀεὶ καὶ μετὰ κάλλους γε τοῦτο ποιεῖν. μαρτύριον δὲ τὰ γράμ- ματα αὐτὰ πάση γεγραμμένα τέχνῃ.