Letter 349: Will you not give over, Basil, packing this sacred haunt of the Muses with Cappadocians, and these redolent of the frost and snow and all Cappadocia's good things? They have almost made me a Cappadocian too, always chanting their I salute you. I must endure, since it is Basil who commands.
Libanius to Basil.
Will you never stop filling this sacred home of the Muses with Cappadocians — people who reek of frost and snow and all of Cappadocia's finest qualities? They have nearly made a Cappadocian out of me as well, forever chanting their "I salute you."
I will endure it, since Basil commands it. But know this: I am making a careful study of their manners and customs, and I intend to transform these men into the refinement and harmony of my Calliope [the Muse of eloquence — Libanius's way of saying his rhetorical school], so that they may seem to you to have been turned from pigeons into doves.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
Related Letters
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