Letter 944: Encouraging a student to focus on speech-writing.
Upon receiving your letter, I hoped to hear from it, as if it brought us some word of the sender. But since it spoke much of your desire for my letters, while what I wanted to find was nowhere to be seen, I strongly found fault with your desire for being directed toward this rather than that. It should have been directed more toward that than this; for you will become illustrious more by composing speeches than by receiving letters from us. Weave, therefore, speeches akin to that one which was crowned with great applause. You will not lack for subject matter, as our noble emperors are always performing some fine deed.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
1. Λαβών σου τὴν ἐπιστολὴν ἤλπιζον μὲν ἀκούσεσθαι παρ᾿ αὐτῆς, ὡς καὶ λόγον ἡμῖν φέροι τοῦ πέμψαντος τὴν ἐπιστολήν· ἐπεὶ δὲ πολλὰ μὲν ὑπὲρ ἐπιθυμίας ἔλεγεν ἡμετέρων γραμμάτων, ὃ δ᾿ ἐβουλόμην εὑρεῖν, εὕρισκον οὐδαμοῦ, πάνυ σου τὴν ἐπιθυμίαν ἐμεμψάμην περὶ τοῦτο μὲν οὖσαν, περὶ ἐκεῖνο δὲ οὐκ οὖσαν. ἣν ἐχρῆν εἶναι περὶ ἐκεῖνο μᾶλλον ἢ τοῦτο· μᾶλλον γὰρ λόγους ποιῶν ἔσῃ λαμπρὸς ἢ ταῖς παρ᾿ ἡμῶν ἐπιστολαῖς. 2. ὕφαινε τοίνυν λόγους ἀδελφοὺς ἐκείνῳ τῷ μεγάλοις ἐστεφανωμένῳ κρότοις. ὑποθέσεως δὲ οὐκ ἀπορήσεις τῶν γενναίων ἡμῖν βασιλέων ἀεί τι καλὸν ἐργαζομένων.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern libanius foerster vol11 batch6 gemini flash ocr reviewed v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/download/foerster-libanii-opera/Foerster%20%281922%29%2C%20Libanii%20opera%2011_djvu.xml
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