Letter 951: Libanius defends himself against charges of encouraging students to study Latin/Law in Rome instead of Greek rhetoric.
Tell Calliopius not to speak ill of the spring as if it were leading some of our young men to Rome by sea. I am not doing the evil he claims, nor am I insulting the Greek tongue while adorning the Italian; no father could say I advised him to do such a thing. These are the fantasies of a foolish mind that hopes for what it most desires. If they had any sense, they would accept the advice of facts. This advice consists in examining those who have been returned to many cities by Rome—those who differ little from cattle.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
1. Λέγε Καλλιοπίῳ μὴ κακῶς τὸ ἔαρ λέγειν ὡς ἄγον τῇ Ῥώμῃ τῶν ἡμετέρων νέων διὰ θαλάττης τινάς. οὐ γὰρ ἐγὼ τοῦθ' ὅ φησι ποιῶ τὸ κακὸν οὐδ' ὑβρίζω μὲν τὴν Ἑλλάδα φωνήν, κοσμῶ δὲ τὴν Ἰταλῶν, οὐδ' ἂν εἴποι πατὴρ οὐδεὶς τοιοῦτον αὑτῷ τί με συμβεβουλευκέναι. 2. ἀλλ' ἔστι ταῦτα ἀνοίας ἐλπιζούσης ἃ μάλιστα βούλεται. νοῦς δὲ εἴ σφισιν ἐνῆν, ἐδέχοντ' ἂν τὴν ἀπὸ τῶν πραγμάτων παραινέσιν. ἡ δ' ἐστὶν ἐξετάζειν τοὺς ἀποδοθέντας πολλαῖς πόλεσιν παρ' ἐκείνης τοὺς οὐ πολλῷ τῶν βοσκημάτων διαφέροντας.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern libanius foerster vol11 batch6 gemini flash ocr reviewed 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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