Letter 535: It would have been fine if you had been here in person to follow the custom, and it is also not bad that even in...
To Arsenius. (356/57)
That too would have been well, if you had observed the rule while you were present; and as it is, this is not bad either, that not even in your absence did you abandon the rule.
And I was pleased both that the gold came accompanied by a letter, and that you act contrary to most young men. For they flee from those set over them, but you summon the one who will be set over you, making clear that even now you pass your time in hard work, putting your father in my place; may you come to be like him, since to surpass him, at any rate, is among the impossible things.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Ἀρσενίῳ. (356/57)
Κἀκεῖνο ἂν εἶχε καλῶς, εἰ παρὼν ἐχρῶ τῷ νόμῳ, καὶ τὸ
νῦν οὐ κακῶς, τὸ μηδὲ ἀπόντα τὸν νόμον ἐκλιπεῖν.
ἥσθην
δὲ τῷ τε μετ’ ἐπιστολῆς ἴν τὸ χρυσίον καὶ ὅτι τἀναντία
τοῖς πολλοῖς τῶν νέων ποιεῖς. οἱ μὲν γὰρ φεύγουσι τοὺς
ἐφεστηκότας, σὺ δὲ καλεῖς τὸν ἐπιστησόμενον δηλῶν ὡς καἰ
νῦν ἐν τῷ πονεῖν διάγεις ἀντ’ ἐμοῦ τὸν πατέρα τιθέμενος· ᾧ
γένοιο παραπλήσιος· ὡς τό γε νικῆσαι τῶν ἀμηχάνων.
Revision history
- 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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