Letter 251: It is an old passion of mine to delight in Greek words and to consider that those who traffic in anything else are...

To Eudaemon. (357/58) This is an old affliction of mine, to delight in the names of the Greeks and to consider that those who go along with anything outside this do rhetoric an injustice; but earlier I was downcast, having no one to share my passion, nor even anyone who was ready to take part with me in the hunt for these matters. And already a certain man even laughed at me and said that I was concerning myself with nothing greater than the things which the comedy said it was examining concerning the feet of a flea. So that, if anything also escaped me, I do not merely wonder that I was unable to go through it all. But since you came to us from Egypt - and may many blessings come to the man who laid the necessity upon you, who summoned you indeed to a trial, but unwillingly gave to the city the eloquence that is in you - here indeed I perceived still better the truth of the proverb, that when two go together they are a great thing to one another. But perhaps here it is not to one another, but you to me. For the asking has always been mine, while the answering has become yours, so that I suppose I have even worn you out with the thickness of my questions - those sent in little notes while you sat in the company of the young men, and those put to you while you were often taking your meal at home. And the snowstorms produced much of it too, whenever we met one another. For our discussions were not about income from one's craft, nor about food and what we have dined on and what we are about to dine on, nor who is leaving office and who will succeed him. For this seems to have nothing to do with the Muses. But I, on seeing you, would at once drag you toward the wickerwork screens of the workshops, and hold you fast, and all but nail you up, and set you down to the testing of words; and you would distinguish the spurious from the genuine, helping some that had been driven out unjustly, and casting out others as not justly honored. The very same things the suburbs too share knowledge of with us, sitting on which, while we awaited the magistrates coming home from abroad, we had something to work at. Now to count everything up would be a task for the Apollo who can bring even the sand into number; but you, who have granted us, O Heracles, to speak whenever we call upon the god - and yet someone, not among those of mean repute, used to say that one must remove the iota, except for him who complains, and does not bar this man from the letter, but does not allow him to call out together with this letter - but you, having opened up a triple road for the calling, two of which are for us, while for poets nothing is impassable since they are winged: know that you have done a great favor both to us and to the god, and expect something good from him. For you know how great were the gifts that Heracles used to give even before his journey into heaven. Now another man, having praised the art concerning the name, would have departed seeing nothing of the rest; but to me you seem to benefit not so much by teaching as by giving delight with beauty. And your beauties are partly from Italy, partly from Aetolia - here from the image and the deeds done over wine, and there from those saved through the works of Euripides. For indeed I seem to see those who were cowering and trembling made bright and confident by the songs. And I rejoice, by Athena, that for me Euripides - you are not unaware how I am inflamed with love for the poet - has preserved the souls of those citizens who had met misfortune, by means of his dramas. Whom you seem to me to have summoned as a witness, only not as one who has not others also to summon on behalf of the same things, but in order that, by bringing forward my own darlings, you might in this way too do me a favor. For you have done something resembling this: to one who, when asked by a thirsty man for whatever drink, gave Thasian wine, because he knew that the one who asked was devoted to the Thasian. For this is at once both to cure the thirst and to do so with greater pleasure. Then are not you truly blessed, searching out such things and bestowing such gifts, more indeed than Anthemion and Ischomachus on account of the greatness of their wealth, and Nicias on account of the multitude of his slaves? For may it be mine to track down such things, so that I may have a Daos.

Εὐδαίμονι. (357/58) Παλαιὸν ἔμοιγε τοῦτο τὸ πάθος τοῖς Ἑλλήνων ὀνό- μασι χαίρειν καὶ τοὺς <τοῖς> ἔξω τούτου συμφερομένους ἀδικεῖν ἡγεῖσθαι ῥητορικήν· ἠθύμουν δὲ πρότερον τὸν συνερῶντα οὐκ ἔχων οὐδ’ ὅστις ἦν ἕτοιμος κοινωνεῖν τῆς περὶ ταῦτα θήρας. ἤδη δέ τις καὶ κατεγέλασέ καὶ οὐ περὶ μειζόνων ἔφησέ με φροντίζειν ἢ οὓς ἔφησεν ἡ κωμῳδία σκοπεῖν περὶ τῶν τῆς ψύλ- λης ποδῶν. ὥστ’ εἴ μέ τι καὶ διέφυγεν, οὐχὶ θαυμάζω μόνον μὴ δυνηθέντα διὰ παντὸς ἐλθεῖν. ἀλλ’ ἐπειδὴ ἧκες ἡμῖν ἐξ Αἰγύπτου—καὶ πολλὰ ἀγαθὰ γένοιτο τῷ περιθέντι τὴν ἀ- νάγκην, ὃς σὲ ἐκάλεσε μὲν ἐπὶ δίκην, ἔδωκε δὲ ἄκων τῇ πόλει τοὺς ἐν σοὶ λόγους — ἐνταῦθα δὴ τῆς παροιμίας ἔτ’ ἄμεινον ᾐσθόμην, ὡς ἄρα σύν τε δύ᾿ ἐρχομένω μέγα ἀλλήλοις εἰσίν. ἀλλ’ ἴσως ἐνταῦθα οὐκ ἀλλήλοις, ἀλλ’ ἐμοὶ σύ. τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἐρωτᾶν ἐμὸν ἀεί, τὸ δὲ ἀποκρίνεσθαι γεγένηται σόν, ὥστ’ οἶ- μαί σε καὶ ἀποκναῖσαι τῷ τῶν ἐρωτημάτων πυκνῷ τῶν μὲν ἐν γραμματίοις πεμπομένων ἐπὶ συνουσίᾳ σοι τῶν νέων καθη- μένῳ, τῶν δὲ οἴκαδε σῖτον αἱρουμένῳ πολλάκις τὸ πολὺ δὲ ἐποίουν καὶ αἱ νιφάδες, ἡνίκ’ ἂν ἀλλήλοις ἐντύχοιμεν. οὐ γὰρ ἡμῖν οἱ λόγοι περὶ προσόδου τῆς ἀπὸ τῆς τέχνης οὐδ’ ὑπὲρ ἐδωδῆς καὶ τί δεδειπνήκαμεν καὶ τί μέλλομεν οὐδ’ ὅστις ἔξεισι τῆς ἀρχῆς καὶ διαδέξεται τίς. τουτὶ γὰρ οὐδὲν πρὸς τὰς Μούσας εἶναι δοκεῖ. ἀλλ’ ἐγώ σε ἰδὼν ἕλκων ἂν εὐθὺς πρὸς τὰ γέρρα τῶν ἐργαστηρίων καὶ κατέχων καὶ μόνον οὐ προση- λῶν εἰς τὴν τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐνεβίβαζον βάσανον, σὺ δὲ ἀπέκρινες τὰ νόθα τῶν γνησίων τοῖς μὲν βοηθῶν ἐξεληλαμένοις ἀδίκως, τὰ δὲ ἐκβάλλων ὡς οὐ δικαίως τιμώμενα. ταὐτὰ ταὐτὰ ἡμῖν καὶ τὰ προάστεια σύνοιδεν, ἐφ’ ὧν καθήμενοι τοὺς ἄρ- χοντας ἀναμένοντες ἐξ ἀποδημίας ἰόντας εἴχομεν ὅ τι ἐργασό- μεθα. πάντα μὲν οὖν ἀριθμεῖν τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος ἂν εἴη τοῦ καὶ τὴν ἄμμον ἔχοντος εἰς ἀριθμὸν ἄγειν, δοὺς δὲ ἡμῖν ὦ Ἡράκλεις λέγειν, ἐπειδὰν καλῶμεν τὸν θεόν, καίτοι τις οὐ τῶν ἐν φαύλῃ δόξῃ δεῖν ἐξαίρειν ἔφασκε τὸ ἰῶτα πλὴν ὅστις σχετλιάζει, τοῦτον δὲ οὐκ εἴργει τοῦ γράμματος, καλεῖν δέ γε οὐκ ἐᾷ μετὰ τοῦδε τοῦ γράμματος, ἀλλὰ σὺ τριπλῆν ἀνεὶς τῇ κλήσει τὴν ὁδόν, ὧν ἡμῖν τὼ δύο, ποιηταῖς δὲ οὐδὲν ἄβατον ἅτε ἐπτερωμένοις, ἡμῖν τε ἴσθι καὶ τῷ θεῷ μεγάλα κεχαρισμέ- νος καὶ προσδέχου τι παρ’ ἐκείνου χρηστόν. οἷσθα δὲ ἡλίκας ἐδίδου δωρεὰς καὶ πρὸ τῆς εἰς οὐρανὸν πορείας Ἡρακλῆς. ἄλλος μὲν οὖν ἂν ἐπαινέσας τὴν περὶ τοὔνομα τέχνην ἀπηλ- 246 LIBANIl λάγη τῶν ἄλλων οὐδὲν ἰδών, ἐμοὶ δὲ δοκεῖς οὐ μᾶλλόν γε τῷ διδάσκειν ὠφελεῖν ἢ τῷ μετὰ κάλλους εὐφραίνειν. κάλλη δέ σοι τὰ μὲν ἐξ Ἰταλίας, τὰ δὲ ἐξ Αἰτωλίας, ἐνταῦθα μὲν ἀπὸ τῆς εἰκόνος καὶ τῶν ἐν οἴνῳ πεπραγμένων, ἐκεῖ δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν διὰ τῶν Εὐριπίδου σεσωσμένων. ὁρᾶν γὰρ δὴ δοκῶ τοὺς ἐπτη- χότας καὶ τρέμοντας φαιδροὺς ἐπὶ τοῖς ᾄσμασι καὶ τεθαρρη- κότας. καὶ χαίρω γε, νὴ τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν, ὅτι μοι ὁ Εὐριπίδης, οὐκ ἀγνοεῖς ὅπως περικάομαι τοῦ ποιητοῦ, τοῖς ἠτυχηκόσι τῶν πολιτῶν ἀπὸ τῶν δραμάτων ἐφύλαξε τὰς ψυχάς. ὅν μοι δοκεῖς καλέσαι μάρτυρα μόνον οὐχ ὡς οὐκ ἔχων καὶ ἄλλους ὑπὲρ τῶν αὐτῶν καλεῖν, ἀλλ’ ἴνα μοι παράγων τἀμὰ παιδικὰ μόνον καὶ τῇδε χαρίζοιο. πεποίηκας γὰρ προσόμοιόν τι τῷ πόμα μὲν ὅ τι δήποτε παρὰ τοῦ διψῶντος αἰτηθέντι, δόντι δὲ Θάσιον οἶνον, διότι τὸν ᾐτηκότα ἠπίστατο τῷ Θασίῳ προσκεί- μένον. τοῦτο γάρ ἐστιν ὁμοῦ καὶ τὸ δίψος ἀκέσασθαι καὶ μετὰ μείζονος ἡδονῆς. εἶτα οὐ σύ γε εὐδαίμων ὡς ἀληθῶς τοι- αῦτα διερευνώμενος καὶ τοιαῦτα δωρούμενος, μᾶλλόν γε ἢ Ἀν- θεμίων τε καἰ Ἰσχόμαχος ἐπὶ τῷ μεγέθει τῶν χρημάτων καἰ Νικίας ἐπὶ τῷ πλήθει τῶν ἀνδραπόδων; ἐμοὶ γὰρ εἴη τοιαῦτα ἰχνεύειν ἴνα ἔχοντι Δάον.