Letter 456: The loss in not having such a listener was mine, the speaker's.

LibaniusHellespontius|c. 357 AD|Libanius|AI-assisted
education books

To Hellespontius.

The loss of not gaining such a listener was the speaker's. For you will not lack a more skillful orator, but we shall not find a more kindly disposed judge.

Yet, though we have long been expecting your son, we still do not see him, even though he is a young man and we are his friends by inheritance from his father. May the place that once received his father receive him too.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Ἑλλησποντίῳ. (355/56)

Τοῦ λέγοντος ἦν τὸ μὴ τοιοῦτον λαβεῖν ἀκροατὴν ἡ ζη-
μία. σὺ μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ἀπορήσεις δεξιωτέρου ῥήτορος, ἡμεῖς δὲ
κριτὴν οὐχ εὑρήσομεν εὐνούστερον.

τὸν υἱὸν δὲ πάλαι προσ-
δοκῶντες ὁρῶμεν οὔπω, καίτοι νεανίσκος μὲν ἐκεῖνος, ἡμεῖς
δὲ αὐτῷ πατρικοὶ φίλοι. τόπος δὲ αὐτόν, ὃς καὶ τὸν τοκέα
δέξαιτο.

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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