Letter 968: Libanius contrasts his weakness with Dometius' power in the matter of the Tyrians.
On behalf of the Tyrians, two letters came to me from Phoenicia, while four came to someone else. Some of my companions called this an insult, saying that two and four are not equal. I told them they should not be surprised that four did not come to me, but rather that even two did. It is pointless to send letters about such matters to someone as weak as I am. The man with power should have received not only four, but many times that number.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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. Ὑπὲρ Τυρίων ἐπιστολαὶ πρὸς ἐμὲ μὲν ἦλθον ἀπὸ Φοινίκης δύο, πρὸς ἄλλον δέ τινα τέτταρες. τῶν οὖν ἑταίρων τινὲς ὕβριν ἐκάλουν τὸ πρᾶγμα λέγοντες· οὐκ ἴσον δύο καὶ τέτταρες. 2. εἶπον δὴ πρὸς αὐτοὺς ὅτι μὴ χρὴ θαυμάζειν εἰ μὴ καὶ πρὸς ἐμὲ τέτταρες, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον, ὅτι καὶ δύο. πρὸς γὰρ δὴ τὸν οὕτως ἀσθενῆ μάταιον πέμπειν ὑπὲρ τοιούτων ἐπιστολάς· παρ᾿ ᾧ δὲ τὸ δύνασθαι, τοῦτον ἔδει μὴ τέτταρας μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ πολλάκις εἰληφέναι τοσαύτας.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern libanius foerster vol11 batch7 t257 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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