Letter 958: Libanius thanks Eusebius for his concern over his grief but complains that another Eusebius is withholding important legal documents.
You mourned Olympius well and praised me; it is a greater tribute than any long speech to fear I might lose my mind from grief. Yet you, who had this fear and relieved my great dread with a great deed, should not also be the cause of some grief—which was brought to me by the inability to help an unfortunate woman. The case has been settled by the Emperor's hand, but the documents, which should rightly be with us, are not. Our friend Eusebius is the one who prevented it, taking and holding them, and while he writes about other things, he omits this. This is justice, it seems, for the words and deeds I performed against you for Theophilus. I have heard something of the sort, and the slanderer himself revealed it. I do not wonder if someone fabricated such a thing, but that you did not seize stones against the one who said it.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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. Καλῶς Ὀλύμπιον μὲν ἐθρήνησας, ἐμὲ δὲ ἐπήνεσας· παντὸς γὰρ λόγου μακροῦ μεῖζον εἰς ἐγκώμιον τὸ δεῖσαι μὴ παράφρων τῇ λύπῃ γενοίμην. 2. ἔδει μέντοι σε τὸν τοῦτον μὲν ἔχοντα τὸν φόβον, φόβον δὲ ἐμὸν μέγαν ἔργῳ μεγάλῳ λελυκότα μὴ καὶ λύπης αἴτιον εἶναί τινος· ἣν ἤνεγκέ μοι τὸ μὴ δυνηθῆναι βοηθῆσαι γυναικὶ δυστυχεῖ. 3. καίτοι λέλυται μὲν ἡ δίκη τῇ βασιλέως χειρί, παρ' ἡμῖν δ' ἂν εἰκότως ὄντα τὰ γράμματα οὐκ ἔστιν. ὁ δὲ κεκωλυκὼς ὁ φίλος ἡμῖν Εὐσέβιος λαβών τε καὶ κατέχων καὶ περὶ ἑτέρων μὲν ἐπιστέλλων, τοῦτο δὲ παραλείπων. 4. δίκη ταῦτα, ὡς ἔοικε, καὶ λόγων καὶ ἔργων τῶν ὑπὲρ Θεοφίλου μοι κατὰ σοῦ γεγενημένων. ἀκήκοα γάρ την τι καὶ τοιοῦτον, ἐμήνυε δὲ αὐτὸς ὁ συκοφάντης. ἐγὼ δὲ οὐκ εἴ τις ἔπλασέ τι τοιοῦτο, θαυμάζω, ἀλλ' ὅτι μὴ λίθους ἐπὶ τὸν εἰπόντα ἥρπασας.
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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