Letter 967: Libanius asks Proclus to help Philip, whose education has not saved him from poverty.

LibaniusProclus, correspondent of Libanius|c. 390 AD|Libanius|From Antioch|AI-assisted
RecommendationPovertyEducationJustice
Libanius wryly calls his own letters unbeautiful, then uses Proclus' fondness for them as leverage.

This Philip is a relative of Philip, the man who completed his offices with many fine actions and without anger. After associating with many sophists and taking from each what each had to give, this Philip fled the labors of advocacy and has come in search of some livelihood. Even so he has not escaped poverty, and he now comes to you convinced that your justice will save him. Hearing that you take pleasure in what you consider my letters, he asked for letters from me. They are not beautiful, but he asked and received them. Through your friendship and power, I become a benefactor to men.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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. Φιλίππου συγγενὴς οὗτός ἐστι Φίλιππος, Φιλίππου τοῦ πολλαῖς τε καὶ καλαῖς πράξεσιν ἄνευ ὀργῆς ἐπιτεθεικότος τέλη. πολλοῖς δὲ οὗτος ὡμιληκὼς σοφισταῖς καὶ παρ᾿ ἑκάστου λαβὼν ὃ παρ᾿ ἑκάστου λαβεῖν ἔδει, φυγὼν τοὺς ἐν τῷ συνδικεῖν πόνους ἧκεν ἐπί τινα ζώνην. 2. τὴν πενίαν δὲ οὐδ᾿ οὕτω λύσας ἔρχεται παρ᾿ ὑμᾶς σωθήσεσθαι τῇ σῇ δικαιοσύνῃ πεπεισμένος. ἀκούων δὲ ἥδεσθαί σε ταῖς ἡμετέραις ἐπιστολαῖς ταῖς οὐ καλαῖς μέν, σοὶ δὲ δοκούσαις, ᾔτησέ τε καὶ αἰτήσας ἔλαβε, καὶ διὰ τὴν σὴν φιλίαν καὶ δύναμιν εὐεργέτης ἀνθρώπων ἐγώ.

Revision history

  1. 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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