Letter 324: My health has been indifferent lately, which explains the gap in our correspondence.

To Aristaenetus. (357) This Antiochus here is one of those who have often saved us by his art [the art of medicine]; for in eloquence he is perhaps second to another, but where a man must be raised up again [restored to health], he is a match for the foremost. His hands, then, the whole city enjoys in equal measure, but toward our family he has a friendship inherited from his father, and he has been to not a few of us in the place of those who nourished us, just as many of our ancestors were that to him. You may learn this also from the very reason for which the man has come to us. For Theodora, when Thalassius had died, asked for his little daughter and took her, so as thereby to lighten her grief, and loved her as though she herself had borne her; but since it is fitting that the girl should return to us, Antiochus comes with his wife to fetch her, being in other respects a good guardian and a help to the body, having reckoned the income from his art to be of less account than the doing of a favor to his friends. Let him, then, make trial of your nature, so that he too may report that very thing which is sung of you by many, that no one is comparable to you.

Ἀρισταινέτῳ. (357) Ἀντίοχος οὑτοσὶ τῶν πολλάκις ἡμᾶς σεσωκότων ἐστὶ τῇ τέχνῃ· κατὰ μὲν γὰρ τὴν γλῶτταν ἴσως ἑτέρου δεύτερος, οὗ δὲ ἀναστῆσαι δεῖ, τοῖς πρώτοις ἐνάμιλλος. τῶν μὲν οὖν χειρῶν αὐτοῦ πᾶσα ἡ πόλις ἀπολαύει δι’ ἴσου, πρὸς δὲ τὸ γένος ἡμῶν πατρόθεν ἐστὶν αὐτῷ φιλία, καὶ γέγονεν οὐκ ὀλί- γοις ἡμῶν ἀντὶ τροφέων, ὃ τούτῳ πολλοὶ τῶν ἡμετέρων προ- γόνων. μάθοις δ’ ἂν καὶ παρὰ τῆς αἰτίας, καθ’ ἣν ἤκει τις ἀνὴρ πρὸς ἡμᾶς. Θεοδώρα μὲν γάρ, οἰχομένου Θαλασσίου θυγάτριον, ὡς δὴ τούτῳ κουφιοῦσα τὴν λύπην δεηθεῖσα λαμβάνει καὶ ἠγάπησεν ὥσπερ αὐτὴ τεκοῦσα· ἐπεὶ δὲ καλῶς ἔχει τὴν κόρην ἡμῖν ἐπανελθεῖν, Ἀντίοχος μετὰ τῆς γυναικὸς ἐπὶ τὴν κομιδὴν ἔρχεται τά τε ἄλλα φύλαξ ἀγαθὸς καὶ τῷ σώματι βοηθὸς τὴν ἀπὸ τῆς τέχνης πρόσοδον ἐλάττω κρίνας τοῦ χαρίσασθαι τοῖς φίλοις. λαβέτω δὴ πεῖραν τῆς σῆς φύσεως, ὅπως καὶ οὗτος ἀγγέλλῃ τοῦτο δὴ τὸ περὶ σοῦ παρὰ πολλῶν ᾀδόμενον, ὡς οὐδείς σοι παραπλήσιος.