Letter 961: Libanius congratulates Paulus and rejects the rumor that he is angry with him.
You wrote what you wrote to people who already knew it. I have made it my business to know how things stand with you, and I have had no shortage of informants, since many people know matters of such importance. Your affairs are too large to go unnoticed. I congratulate you for rising above the moment. Many people fly away from us, but those who have had a taste of you stay with you; may they stay, and may they never be persuaded that worse things are better. Your beautiful letter delighted me, and so did your making your son my namesake. But you pained me by mentioning a slander about anger where there is none. You have not wronged me, and I would not be angry with a good man. If neither of us has written for a long time, business has kept us both from doing 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AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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. Πρὸς εἰδότας ἔγραψας ἃ γέγραφας. ἡμῖν τε γὰρ ἦν ἐπιμελὲς εἰδέναι τὰ σὰ τῶν τε ἀπαγγελούντων οὐδὲν ἠπορήσαμεν πολλῶν ὄντων τῶν τὰ τηλικαῦτα εἰδότων. μεγάλα γὰρ δὴ τὰ σὰ καὶ οὐκ ἂν ἠγνοεῖτο. 2. συγχαίρω δέ σοι κρείττονι τοῦ καιροῦ γεγενημένῳ· παρὰ μὲν γὰρ ἡμῶν πολὺ τὸ πετόμενον, σοὶ δ᾿ οἵ γευσάμενοί σου μένοντες καὶ μένοιεν καὶ μήποτε πεισθεῖεν εἶναι τὰ χείρω βελτίονα. 3. τῷ κάλλει δέ με τῆς ἐπιστολῆς εὐφράνας καὶ τῷ ποιῆσαί μοι τὸν υἱὸν ὁμώνυμον ἐλύπησας τῇ συκοφαντίᾳ μνημονεύσας ὀργῆς οὐκ οὔσης. οὔτε γὰρ δὴ σὺ περὶ ἡμᾶς ἐγένου κακὸς ἡμεῖς τε οὐκ ἂν πρὸς ἀγαθὸν ὠργιζόμεθα. τὸ δὲ μήτ᾿ ἐμὲ πρὸς σὲ πολλοῦ χρόνου γράψαι μήτ᾿ αὖ σὲ πρὸς ἐμὲ τῶν ἀσχολίαις κεκωλυμένων ἐστίν.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern libanius foerster vol11 batch7 t257 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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