Letter 334: Your letter was sweeter than the storax you sent — and not only sweeter than that batch, but than the kind you say...

To Acacius. Sweeter than the storax which you sent was your letter, and not sweeter than this only, but also than that other storax which you say no longer comes to you from the Isaurians. As for your speech, in the things you said I take pleasure together with you, but for the things that are still to be said you wish me to lay aside my reproach. And yet, even if I do not speak of it, I am stricken in my heart that there is no help among those of the second rank; and while I was waiting for it and standing agape toward the gates and saying to Strategius, "When then will it come?"—and hearing that it would come at once—when I received the letter I had many grounds for despondency: both the illness of your wife, a wife who is pleasing to you and who bore Titianus, and the fact that you are weighed down by two burdens, both by her being sick and by your dearest friend's being absent from the contests. I consoled myself, then, with the thought that it is not given to human beings to prosper in all things, and I continually chanted the verse: "But in no way all things at once." Strategius, indeed, was loudly crying out against Fortune, and—being, as before, afraid of the fear of the speaker—there was nothing whatever that he did not utter concerning your absence. I, then, will go in, trusting that Hermes will be present for me in your stead; and as for you, may you, once freed from your present troubles, come to us, if that be better, or remain where you are, if that be better.

Ἀκακίῳ. (357/58) Τῆς μὲν στύρακος, ἣν ἔπεμψας, ἡδίω τὰ γράμματά σου, καὶ οὐ ταύτης γε μόνον, ἀλλὰ κἀκείνης, ἣν φὴς οὐκέτι φοι- τᾶν ἐξ Ἰσαύρων ὡς ὑμᾶς· τοῦ λόγου δὲ οἷς μὲν εἶπον συνή- δομαι, τοῖς δὲ ρηθησομένοις βούλει με τὸ βλάσφημον ἀφεῖναι. καίτοι, κἂν μὴ λέγω, πέπληγμαι τὴν καρδίαν ὡς οὐκ οὔσης ἐν τοῖς δευτέροις βοηθείας, ἣν περιμένων ἐγὼ καὶ κεχηνὼς πρὸς τὰς πύλας καὶ λέγων πρὸς τὸν Στρατήγιον· ὁπότε δὲ ἥξει; καὶ ἀκούων ὡς αὐτίκα, λαβὼν τὰ γράμματα πολλα- χόυεν εἶχον ἀθυμεῖν τῇ τε ἀρρωστίᾳ τῆς γυναικός, γυναικὸς σοί τε ἀρεσκούσης καὶ Τιτιανὸν τεκούσης, καὶ ὅτι σὺ δυοῖν βαρύνῃ, τῷ τε ἐκείνην κάμνειν καὶ τῷ τῶν ἀγώνων ἀπεῖναι τοῦ φιλτάτου. παρεμυθούμην δ’ οὖν ἐμαυτὸν ἐκ τοῦ μὴ πάντα εἶναι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις εὐτυχεῖν καὶ συνεχῶς ἐπῇδον τό· ἀλλ’ οὔπως ἅμα πάντα. Στρατήγιος δὲ καὶ δὴ λαμπρῶς κατεβόα τῆς Τύχης καὶ ὢν ὥσπερ πρὸ τοῦ καὶ φόβον τὸν τοῦ λέγοντος φοβούμενος οὐδὲν ὅ τι οὐκ ἐφθέγγετο περὶ τῆς σῆς ἀπουσίας. ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν εἴσειμι τὸν Ἑρμῆν ἀντὶ σοῦ μοι πιστεύων ἔσεσθαι, σὲ δὲ εἰη τῶν παρόντων ἀπαλλαγέντα κα- κῶν ἐλθεῖν μὲν ὡς ἡμᾶς, εἰ βέλτιον, μένειν δὲ κατὰ χώραν, εἰ βέλτιον.