Letter 478: Why I was reluctant to write, you learned from the letter I sent through the sons of Bassus — if you received it.

To Themistius. Why I was reluctant to write to you, you have learned from the letter—if indeed you received the one I sent by the children of Bassus. But as for this man Malchus, who is coming to you, it seemed to me one of the strangest of things that he should not become your friend through me. For that he, the moment he stepped off the ship, was going to seek you out before all others, and that you would receive him as he approached in the most gracious manner, even without a letter from me—this is clear; but it is by far more pleasing to us both that I should be the one bringing them together. Malchus, then, comes full of the things said about you, having received some of them from me and others from those who, having learned them from me, teach them to still others. And about him I write only this much: that he is as good a man as any other, and no less a man of rhetoric than he is good. Make the city such for him that he may praise his journey. Or rather, you need take no other trouble at all, but if you grant him only this one favor—to judge the man as the sort he is and to enroll him among your close associates—he will have gained the greatest profit from his journey.

Θεμιστίῳ. (356) Δι’ μὲν ὀκνηρῶς πρὸς τὸ ἐπιστέλλειν ἔσχον, παρὰ τῶν γραμμάτων ἔμαθες, εἴπερ ἔλαβες, ἃ διὰ τῶν Βάσσου παίδων ἔπεμπον. Μάλχον δὲ τουτονὶ πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἀφικνούμενον μὴ δι’ ἐμοῦ σοι γενέσθαι φίλον τῶν ἀτόπων ἐφαίνετό μοι. ὅτι μὲν γὰρ καὶ χωρὶς ἐμῶν γραμμάτων οὗτός τε τῆς νεὼς ἐκβὰς σὲ πρὸ τῶν ἄλλων εὐθὺς ἔμελλε ζητήσειν σύ τε προσιόντα τοῦτον ὡς ἡμερώτατα δέξεσθαι, δῆλον, μακρῷ δὲ ἥδιον ἀμ- φοῖν ἐμὲ τὸν συνάγοντα εἶναι. Μάλχος μὲν οὖν πλήρης ὢν τῶν περὶ σοῦ λόγων ἔρχεται τοὺς μὲν παρ’ ἐμοῦ δεξάμενος, τοὺς δὲ παρ’ ἄλλων, οἳ παρ’ ἐμοῦ μαθόντες ἄλλους διδάσκουσι· περὶ δὲ τοῦδε γράφω τοσοῦτον, ὅτι χρηστὸς μὲν ὡς οὐκ ἄλλος, ῥητορικὸς δὲ οὐχ ἧττον ἢ χρηστός. ποίει δὲ τὴν πόλιν αὐτῷ τοιαύτην ὥστε αὐτὸν ἐπαινεῖν τῆς ὁδοῦ. μᾶλλον δέ, οὐδέν σε δεῖ τὰ ἄλλα πονεῖν, ἀλλ’ ἢν ‘ὲν τοῦτο χαρίσῃ τὸ νο- μίσαι τὸν ἄνδρα οἷός ἐστι καὶ γράψασθαι ἐν ἐπιτηδείοις, τὰ μέγιστα ἀπολέλαυκε τῆς ὁδοῦ.