Letter 912: Libanius asks Sebastianus to treat the orphan Parnasius favorably.

LibaniusSebastianus, correspondent of Libanius|c. 388 AD|Libanius|From Antioch|AI-assisted
recommendationfriendshipeducationorphanadvocacy
Libanius stresses that Sebastianus has the power to make the outcome either good or bad.

I am not ashamed to ask a friend for a favor when the favor is just. And you are my friend, as many mouths report among those who come to me from your part of the world. Since you have the power to treat Parnasius well or badly, choose the better course. Honor his family and his city, honor Parnasius himself, a young man eager for rhetoric, and honor me, who ask on behalf of a companion and an orphan.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Φίλον οὐκ αἰσχύνομαι χάριν αἰτῶν δικαίαν. σὺ δ᾽ ἡμῖν φίλος, ὡς πολλὰ μηνύει στόματα τῶν ὡς ἡμᾶς ἐκεῖθεν ἀφικνουμένων. ὧν τοίνυν κύριος τοῦ εὖ ἢ κακῶς ποιῆσαι Παρνάσιον εὖ βουλήθητι μᾶλλον καὶ γένος καὶ πόλιν τὴν ἐκείνου τιμῶν καὶ αὐτὸν Παρνάσιον ἐπιθυμοῦντα λόγων νέον καὶ τὸν ὑπὲρ ὁμιλητοῦ τε καὶ ὀρφανοῦ δεόμενον ἐμέ.

Revision history

  1. 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import

    Initial corpus import from modern libanius foerster vol11 batch4 managed agents v1.

    Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/download/foerster-libanii-opera/Foerster%20%281922%29%2C%20Libanii%20opera%2011_djvu.xml

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