Letter 410: [To Aristainetus]

To Aristaenetus. (355) I hear that your grief has overmastered you and that you spend your time about the tomb. Now, just as I would have found fault with you for not grieving, so I do not commend you for grieving so excessively. For the one is not in keeping with your nature, the other not in keeping with your education. But if indeed there is need of some consolation from another as well, Olympius will supply it, being good at both things, freeing souls and bodies alike from their maladies. To Silanus. (355) Wishing to give you the things that are accounted great among men, I was not able; but the things that are real rather than apparent - for these I have been able to give - receive: a man who is a friend, laden with every virtue, the admirable Olympius.

Ἀρισταινέτῳ. (355) Ἀκούω σου κεκρατηκέναι τὴν λύπην καὶ εἶναί σοι περὶ τὸ μνῆμα τὴν διατριβήν. ἐγὼ δὲ ὥσπερ μὴ λυπούμενον ᾐτιώ- μην ἄν, οὕτω σφόδρα λυπούμενον οὐκ ἐπαινῶ. τὸ μὲν γὰρ οὐ τῆς σῆς φύσεως, τὸ δὲ οὐ τῆς σῆς παιδεύσεως. εἰ δ᾿ οὗν δεῖ τινος καὶ παρ᾿ ἄλλου παραμυθίας, πληρώσει ταύτην Ὀλύμ- πιος ἀμφότερα ὢν ἀγαθός, ψυχάς τε καὶ σώματα νοσημάτων ἐλευθεροῦν. Σιλανῷ. (355) Τὰ μὲν δοκοῦντα παρὰ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις μεγάλα δοῦναί σοι βουληθεὶς οὐκ ἠδυνήθην, τὰ δὲ ὄντα μᾶλλον ἢ δοκοῦντα – ταυτὶ γὰρ δοῦναι δεδύνημαι – δέχου, φίλον ἄνδρα πάσης ἀρετῆς γέμοντα, τὸν θαυμαστὸν Ὀλύμπιον.