Letter 993: A gratitude letter praising Heraclius because his deeds outrun his promises.
With many people, promises are greater than deeds; with you, the promises are small and the deeds great. You showed us this in your letters about noble Maximus, when you urged the leading men in the cities to care for Maximus' mother. They obeyed, and sharing the same purpose in doing good to this excellent woman, each tried to be the one who surpassed the others. That she has received treatment worthy of her, she herself showed by not remaining silent: she immediately informed her son by letter, he told us, and we in turn asked the gods to grant you blessings for this. We also asked the same gods on behalf of the provinces that you may spend all this time in office as the same man you are now. That was to ask happiness for the provinces.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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. Παρὰ μὲν ἄλλοις πολλοῖς μείζους εἰσὶ τῶν ἔργων αἱ ὑποσχέσεις, σοῦ δὲ μικραὶ μὲν ἐκεῖναι, μεγάλα δὲ ταῦτα, οἷς τοιοῦτος ἡμῖν ἐπεδείχθης ἐν τοῖς περὶ τὸν γενναῖον Μάξιμον γράμμασι, τοὺς ἐν ταῖς πόλεσι πρώτους εἰς ἐπιμέλειαν τῆς Μαξίμου μητρὸς παρακαλέσας. 2. οἱ δὲ ἐπείθοντό τε καὶ ταὐτὰ νοοῦντες ἐν τῷ τὴν βελτίστην εὖ ποιεῖν ἤριζον, αὐτὸς ἕκαστος εἶναι βουλόμενος ὁ νικῶν. 3. ὅτι δὲ ἀξία τούτων οὖσα τυγχάνειν ἡ γυνὴ τετύχηκεν, οἷς οὐκ ἐσιώπησεν ἔδειξεν. εὐθὺς γὰρ δὴ τοῦτο δι' ἐπιστολῆς τὸν υἱὸν ἐδίδαξεν, ὁ δὲ πρὸς ἡμᾶς εἶπεν. 4. ἡμεῖς δὲ σοὶ καὶ διὰ ταῦτ' ἀγαθὰ παρὰ τῶν θεῶν ᾐτήσαμεν, ᾐτήσαμεν δὲ καὶ τοῖς ἔθνεσι παρὰ τῶν αὐτῶν πάντα σε τοῦτον ἐν ἀρχαῖς βιῶναι τὸν χρόνον· τουτὶ δὲ ἦν εὐδαιμονίαν αἰτῆσαι τοῖς ἔθνεσιν.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern libanius foerster vol11 batch9 t259 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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