Letter 9: Aeneas recommends Constantine the poet to Sopater.
I praised the character of excellent Constantine while blaming his fortune. If he were truly happy, he ought to be enjoying one city, his fatherland. Instead, because fortune chose otherwise, he wanders through the cities of many peoples in search of a living, dignifying poverty by professing a poetry made not in Greece but in Italy. He makes a heavy, overblown sound. Coming to me with that art, he asked me to be his ally; I in turn ask you. I do not doubt that you too will rescue him and pass him on to another helper.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
θ'. Σωπάτρῳ σοφιστῇ.
Ἐπῄνεσα τοῦ καλοῦ Κωνσταντίνου τὸν τρόπον, τὴν τύχην μεμψάμενος. ἔδει γάρ, εἰ μακάριος ἦν, μιᾶς ἀπολαύειν πόλεως τῆς πατρίδος· νῦν δὲ πολλῶν ἀνθρώπων τὰ ἄστεα πλανᾶται κατὰ ζήτησιν βίου, ποιητικὴν ἀπαγγελλόμενος οὐκ ἐκ τῆς Ἑλλάδος ἀλλ' ἐξ Ἰταλίας. μετὰ ταύτης προσελθὼν ἐδεῖτό μου συμμαχεῖν, ἐγὼ δὲ σοῦ.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern aeneas gaza hercher v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/download/epistolographoih00herc/epistolographoih00herc_djvu.txt
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