Letter 482: It is time for you to call the Nile a small river, since you also call yourself small in eloquence.

To Theodorus. (356) It is time for you to call the Nile a small river, seeing that you even declare yourself to be small in eloquence. As for everything else, we will believe you, but in this one matter alone we will refuse you our trust. For you it is perhaps a fine thing not to praise yourself, but for us, how is it a fine thing not to seem to know all that there is in you? For are you not that very Theodorus, the one who at Athens, at the cost of many labors, purchased many discourses, and who is illustrious among outsiders by reason of what you brought back from there, and who made the contest you read aloud serve us in place of a goad? And we marvel how you did not see that, while saying you know nothing great, yet sending such writings as these, you will be convicted of lying by those very things you have written, your writings refuting your writings. Thus, not even if you greatly wished it could you say anything that was not fine; and the young men on whose behalf you summon us we love, because they too summon us by the very things they desire.

Θεοδώρῳ. (356) Ὥρα σοι τὸν Νεῖλον μικρὸν καλεῖν ποταμόν, ὅπου γε καὶ σαυτὸν μικρὸν εἶναι φὴς ἐν λόγοις. ἡμεῖς δὲ τὰ μὲν ἄλλα σοι πιστεύσομεν, τουτὶ δὲ μόνον ἀπιστήσομεν. σοὶ μὲν γὰρ ἴσως καλὸν μὴ σαυτὸν ἐγκωμιάζειν, ἡμῖν δὲ μὴ πᾶν ὅσον ἐν σοὶ δοκεῖν εἰδέναι πῶς καλόν; ἢ γὰρ οὐ σὺ Θεόδωρος ἐΜ νος ὁ πολλῶν μὲν πόνων πολλοὺς λόγους ἐωνημένος Ἀθήνησι, πρὸς δὲ τοὺς ἔξω λαμπρὸς ἀφ’ ὧν ἐκεῖθεν ἐκόμιζες, ἡμὶν δὲ ἀντὶ κέντρου ποιήσας ὃν ἀνέγνως ἀγῶνα; θαυμάζω δὲ ὅπως οὐκ εἶδες ὅτι λέγων μὲν μὴ μεγάλα εἰδέναι, τοιαῦτα δὲ ἐπιστέλλων ψευδόμενος ἁλώσῃ τοῖς γεγραμμένοις αὐτοῖς ἐλέγ- χων τὰ γεγραμμένα. οὑτωσὶ μὲν οὐδ’ εἰ πάνυ βούλοιο, δύναιο ἂν εἰπείν τι μὴ καλόν, τοὺς δὲ νέους ὑπὲρ ὧν ἡμᾶς παρακαλεῖς φιλοῦμεν, ὅτι καὶ αὐτοὶ παρακαλοῦσιν ἡμᾶς οἶς ἐπιθυμοῦσιν.