Letter 829: The horses of Tros, the horses of Achilles, even winged Pegasus himself — all mean less to me, Dionysius, than the...

LibaniusDionusios|c. 393 AD|Libanius|AI-assisted
imperial politics

To Dionysius. (363)

Greater to me than the horses of Tros and the horses of Achilles, and even than Pegasus himself who has wings, is this, Dionysius: that you have sent me a letter so brimming with beauty.

They say that you praised the governor too, with every art, and I believe it - the letter bears witness to it. And indeed there is a report that you also prevailed over your adversaries by means of those arguments which you acquired during the time in which they were wronging you.

You, then, recovered your land and whatever else they had carried off; and to me has come glory, in that you again hold what is your own through your own efforts. So then, if you should wish to keep the horse, mount and ride it; but if you should not be able to refrain from sending the horse to me, I shall receive it gladly - because you have sent it as a victor.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Διονυσίῳ. (363)

Καὶ τῶν Τρωὸς καἰ τῶν Ἀχιλλέως ἵππων κοὶ αὐτοῦ γε
τοῦ τὰ πτερὰ ἔχοντος Πηγάσου μεὶζον ἐμοί, Διονύσιε, τὸ σὲ
κάλλους οὕτω γέμουσαν ἐπιστολὴν ἐπεσταλκέναι.

φασί δέ σε
καὶ τὸν ἄρχοντα ἐγκεκωμιακέναι μετὰ τεχνης ἀπάσης καἰ ἐγὼ
πείθομαι μαρτυρεῖ μαρτυρεῖ ἡ ἐπιστολή. καὶ μὴν καὶ κρατῆσαί σε 10
τῶν ἀντιδίκων λόγος οἷς ἐκτήσω λόγοις ἐν ᾧ σε ἠδίκουν χρό-
νῷ.

σὺ μὲν οὖν γῆν τε ἐκομίσω καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα ἡρπάκεσαν·
ἐμοὶ δὲ δόξα γεγένηται τῷ σὲ τὰ σαυτοῦ διὰ σαυτοῦ πάλιν
ἔχειν. εἴτ᾿ οὖν ἔχειν ἐθέλοις τὸν ἵππον, ἀναβαίνων ἔλαυνε,
εἴτ’ οὐκ ἂν δύναιο μὴ πέμψαι μοι τὸν ἵππον, λήψομαι χαίρων. 15
ὅτι νικῶν πέπομφας.

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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