Letter 503: I am surprised that you sent no letter through Clearchus, nor when Iphicles came from you to us.

LibaniusHeortius, of Themistius (a student)|c. 362 AD|Libanius|AI-assisted
friendship

To Themistius. (356/57)

I am surprised that you neither wrote anything by way of Clearchus nor when Iphicles came to us from your side.

If, then, this came about through idleness, one may always go on hoping for letters, for you will bestir yourself at some point; but if it came about from some other cause that holds something troublesome, make it plain, so that I may not annoy you with my writing. For the man who would not gladly send a letter would not gladly receive one either.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Θεμιστίῳ. (356/57)

Θαυμάζω τὸ μήτε διὰ Κλεάρχου σε γράψαι τι μήθ’
ἡνίκα παρ’ ὑμῶν Ἰφικλῆς ὡς ἡμᾶς ἤρχετο.

εἰ μὲν οὖν
ῥᾳθυμίᾳ τοῦτ’ ἐγένετο, καὶ γράμματα ἐλπίζειν ἀεὶ ἔστι, προ-
θυμήσῃ γάρ ποτε· εἰ δ’ ἀπ’ ἄλλης αἰτίας ἐχούσης τι δυσχε-
ρές, δήλωσον, ὡς μή σε ἐνοχλοίην τῷ γράφειν. ὁ γὰρ οὐκ ἂν
ἡδέως ἐπιστείλας οὐδ’ ἄν ἡδέως λάβοι.

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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