Letter 533: I admired Gerontius's character and made him my friend, and now I do whatever I can for him in return.
To Spectatus. (356/57)
Having praised the character of Gerontius, I made him my friend, and indeed I make whomever I can a friend for Gerontius. As for making you his friend, I above all would be able to do it, and he would pray to obtain it.
He has come, then, to you, needing something of his own affairs, but for another to become his patron while you are present is not seemly. See to it, therefore, that you both receive him and look upon him with goodwill, and establish the man in a better condition.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Σπεκτάτῳ. (356/57)
Γεροντίου τὸν τρόπον ἐπαινέσας ἐποιησάμην φίλον καὶ 20
δὴ καὶ ὅντινα ἂν δύνωμαι ποιῶ τῷ Γεροντίῳ. φίλον δὲ σὲ
ἐγὼ μὲν μάλιστα ἂν δυναίμην ποιεῖν, οὗτος δ’ ἂν εὔξαιτο
λαβεῖν.
ἥκει μὲν οὖν παρ’ ὑμᾶς τῶν αὑτοῦ τι δεόμενος,
γενέσθαι δὲ αὐτῷ προστάτην ἕτερον σοῦ παρόντος οὐκ εὐπρε-
πές. ὅπως οὖν καὶ δέξη καὶ μετ’ εὐνοίας ὄψει κοὶ καταστή-
σεις εἰς σχῆμα τὸν ἄνδρα βέλτιον.
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
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