Letter 300: The brevity of this letter should not be taken as a measure of the favor being asked.

LibaniusModestus|c. 342 AD|Libanius|AI-assisted
barbarian invasiontravel mobility

To Apolinarius and Gemellus.

Even now I do not think that you two are doing anything other than being educated, and being educated in that which is the greatest thing among men, namely, to know how to rule. And a father educates his sons in the matter that is most pleasant of all, not by speaking words about the business, but by teaching them to rule through the very tasks at which he labors.

Learn those things, then, and remember us, and fulfill some hopes for Magnus.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Ἀπολιναρίῳ καὶ Γεμέλλῳ. (361?)

Οὐδὲ νῦν ὑμᾶς ἄλλο τι νομίζω δρᾶν ἢ παιδεύεσθαι,
παιδεύεσθαι δέ, ὅπερ μέγιστον ἐν ἀνθρώποις, ἄρχειν εἰδέναι.
παιδεύει δὲ παῖδας πατήρ, ὅπερ ἥδιστον, οὐ λόγους περὶ τοῦ
πράγματος λέγων, ἀλλ’ ἐν οἷς ἐργάζεται διδάσκων ἄρχειν.

ἐκεῖνά τε οὖν μανθάνετε καὶ ἡμῶν μέμνησθε καὶ Μάγνῳ
πληροῦτε τι ἐλπίδας.

Revision history

  1. 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import

    Initial corpus import from modern libanius retranslated v1.

    Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://github.com/OpenGreekAndLatin/First1KGreek/blob/master/volume_xml/libanius_10.xml

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