Letter 563: I have sent servants to your area to buy timber.
To Gaius. (357)
We have sent our household servants to you to buy timber. But they need someone among the men of influence there to become their helper in a foreign land, so that those who are selling may know that, if they act unjustly, there will be one to prevent it.
You indeed have both a just power and friendship toward us. And when I mentioned that Gaius must be employed as an ally, the boy [servant] was delighted and cried out that he had found the very man who was needed. It appeared, then, that he had encountered you even long ago, and when I asked, he confirmed it. If, therefore, you used to be of help before, uninvited, what will you not now do upon receiving this letter?
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Γαίῳ. (357)
Ἐπέμψαμεν τοὺς οἰκέτας ὡς ὑμᾶς ὠνησομένους ξύλα.
δεῖ δὲ αὐτοῖς ἐν γῇ ξένῃ βοηθὸν γενέσθαι τινὰ τῶν αὐτόθι
δυνατῶν, ὅπως εἰδῶσιν οἱ πωλοῦντες ὡς, ἢν ἀδικῶσιν, ὁ
κωλύσων ἔσται.
σοὶ δὴ καὶ δύναμις δικαία καὶ φιλία πρὸς
ἡμᾶς. καὶ ὡς ἐμνήσθην ὅτι Γαΐῳ χρηστέον συμμάχῳ, ἥσθη
τε ὁ παῖς καὶ ἐβόησεν ὡς ὃν ἐχρῆν εὗρον. ἐφαίνετο οὖν καὶ
πάλαι σου τετυχηκέναι, καὶ ὡς ἠρόμην ὡμολόγησεν. εἰ οὖν
ἀπαράκλητος πρότερον ὠφέλεις, τί νῦν ἐπὶ τοῖς γράμμασιν οὐ
δράσεις;
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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