Letter 785: I did not receive Spectatus as someone who had wronged me — for I would write nothing about you that I would wish to...

To Themistius. (362/63) I did not regard Spectatus as one who had wronged me, for I would write nothing of such a sort about you that I should wish to be kept hidden; and if I did in fact commit some error, I did not deserve so great a penalty as the one you exacted in writing. For you lecture me about your own character, as though I had been unable to learn it in so long a time -- twelve years, I think. And yet this is something that not even one of the household slaves reared in your house would have suffered -- no, not even that famous Hister, the one who came from among the barbarians; but you have made it your earnest aim, it seems, to show this man -- if nothing else, one who has often bathed in your company -- to be baser than Melitides [a proverbial fool]. But I, both now and long ago, consider that you practice philosophy, and that now perhaps you write more, while as for the things that befit life, you both guarded them in earlier days, and that earlier trial of yours proved a greater test than the present one. For it is not the same thing to abide by the laws of Plato when one is outside of public affairs, and, with many troubling you, to be in no way forced from your course. And as you reckon up your many pupils, you call many of them blessed, for whom it is possible both to grasp the truth, and, having grasped it, to advance along with it to eloquence of speech. For with you, indeed, are both the gifts of Plato: to teach noble things, and with a fair tongue. These things we neither fail to know nor pass over in silence, but as many as have come to us for discourse have also gone away after hearing discourse of just such a kind. Cease, then, from letters of this sort, and consider that I have indeed grown old, but that I am not yet out of my senses.

Θεμιστίῳ. (362/63) Οὔτε Σπεκτάτον ὡς ἠδικηκότα με εἶδον, οὐδὲν γὰρ ἂν περὶ σοῦ γράψαιμι τοιοῦτον, ὃ κεκρύφθαι βουλοίμην ἄν, εἰ τέ τι καὶ ἥμαρτον, οὐ τοσαύτην γε ὤφειλον δίκην, ὁπόσην ἔλαβες γράφων. διδάσκεις γάρ με περὶ τῶν σαυτοῦ τρόπων ὡς οὐ δυνηθέντα μαθεῖν ἐν οὕτω πολλῷ χρόνῳ, δώδεκα ἔτε- σιν οἷμαι. καίτοι τοῦτό γε μὴ ὅτι τῶν παρὰ σοί τις τρα- φέντων οἰκετῶν, ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ἂν Ἴστρος ἐκεὶνος ὁ παρὰ τῶν βαρβάρων ἔπαθεν, ἀλλ’ ἐσπούδασας, ὡς ἔοικε, τὸν εἰ μηδὲν ἄλλο μετὰ σοῦ πολλὰ δὴ λελουμένον Μελιrίδου δεῖξαι φαυ- λότερον. ἐγὼ δέ σε καὶ νῦν καὶ πάλαι φιλοσοφεῖν ἡγοῦμαι καὶ νῦν μὲν ἴσως πλείω συγγράφειν, τὰ δὲ τῷ βίῳ προσή- κοντα καὶ πρόσθεν τετηρηκέναι καὶ γενέσθαι γε μείζω βάσα- νον τῆς παρούσης ἐκείνην. οὐ γὰρ ἴσον ἔξω πραγμάτων ὄντα τοῖς νόμοις Πλάτωνος ἐμμένειν καὶ πολλῶν ἐνοχλούντων μη- δαμοῦ βιασθῆναι. μαθητὰς δὲ πολλοὺς ἀριθμῶν πολλοὺς εὐδαίμονας λέγεις, οἷς ἔστι μὲν τὴν ἀλήθειαν λαβεῖν, λαβεῖν, δὲ μετ’ ἐκείνης εἰς εὐγλωττίαν ἐπιδοῦναι. ἄμφω γὰρ δὴ παρὰ σοὶ τὰ Πλάτωνος, γενναῖά τε διδάξαι καὶ γλώττῃ καλῇ. ταῦτ οὔτ’ ἀγνοοῦμεν οὔτε σιγῶμεν, ἀλλ’ ὅσοιπερ ἡμῖν εἰς λόγους ἦλθον, καὶ τοιούτων λόγων ἀκούσαντες ἀπῆλθον. παῦσαι δὴ τοιούτων ἐπιστολῶν καὶ νόμιζέ με γεγηρακέναι μέν, παρα- φρονεῖν δὲ οὔπω.