Letter 92: May you continue doing what you do best -- confirming just decisions, saving cities, hating sycophants, and...

To Modestus. (359) May it be yours to do your accustomed things, and these are: to make cities secure and to preserve them, to hate informers, and to come to the aid of those who are wronged; but for us, as the common report has it, the common interests too are harmed, and even if this is greater than the truth, yet that at least is no falsehood, that the death of our uncle has destroyed our household. He is dead, O gods, he is dead, Phasganius, the best of all men, whom you above all men respected, and by whom you above all men were admired, and over whom, when he was ill, you were most concerned. For my part, then, I would pray that the same end might come to me at once; but since I have been kept alive for grief and tears, I look to a single consolation, namely you and your power, which we now enjoy though you are absent, and clearly we shall enjoy it in greater measure, whenever you come.

**To Modestus** (359) May you continue to do what you have always done — that is, to strengthen and preserve cities, to despise sycophants, and to come to the aid of those who suffer injustice. As for us, the common report has it that public affairs too have been harmed, and if that is an exaggeration of the truth, at least this much is no falsehood: the death of my uncle has destroyed our household. He is dead, O gods, dead — Phasganius, that man of surpassing excellence in all things, whom you respected above all men, and by whom you were admired above all men, and for whom you showed such concern when he lay ill. For my own part, I could have prayed to follow him at once. But since I have been preserved for grief and tears, I look to one consolation alone: you and your power, the benefits of which we enjoy even now in your absence, and which, clearly, we shall enjoy all the more greatly when you come.

Μοδέστῳ. (359) Σὲ μὲν εἴη τὰ εἰωθότα ποιεῖν ταῦτα δέ ἐστι τε βεβαιοῦν καὶ σώζειν πόλεις καὶ μισεῖν συκοφάντας καὶ 15 βοηθεῖν ἀδικουμένοις· ἡμῖν δέ, ὡς μὲν ὁ κοινὸς λόγος, καὶ τὰ κοινὰ βλάπτεται, εἰ δὲ τοῦτο μεῖζον τοῦ ἀληθοῦς, ἀλλ’ ἐκεῖνό γε οὐ ψεῦδος, ὅτι τήν γε ἡμετέραν οἰκίαν ἀπολώλεκεν ἡ τελευτὴ τοῦ θείου. τέθνηκεν, ὦ θεοί, τέθνηκεν ὁ πάντα ἄριστος Φασγάνιος, ὃν σὺ μάλιστα ἀνθρώπων ᾐδέσθης καὶ ὑφ’ οὗ μάλιστα ἀνθρώπων ἐθαυμάσθης καὶ περὶ οὗ μάλιστα ἀσθενοῦντος ἐφρόντισας. ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν εὐξαίμην ἐκείνῳ τὴν αὐτὴν εὐθὺς ἐλθεῖν, ἐπεὶ δὲ τετήρημαι λύπη καὶ δάκρυσιν, εἰς μίαν ὁρῶ παραμυθίαν, σέ τε καὶ τὴν σὴν δύ- ναμιν ὧν νῦν τε ἀπολαύομεν ἀπόντος καὶ δῆλον ὡς μειζόνως, ἡνίκα ἂν ἴλθης, ἀπολαυσόμεθα.