Letter 64
Julian the Apostate→Lucian|julian emperor
illnessmonasticismproperty economics
To Lucian the sophist.
Not only do I write to you, but I demand payment in kind. And if my constant writing is a form of abuse, then I beg you to abuse me in return and make me suffer in exactly the same way.
To Lucian the Sophist 5
Not only do I write to you but I demand to receive payment in kind. And if I treat you ill by
writing continually, then I beg you to ill-treat me in return and make me suffer in the same way.
5 A merely sophistic letter of compliment such as this is a conventional "type" of the sort recommended in the contemporary handbooks on epistolary style. Gesner thinks it was addressed to the Lucian who wrote the dialogue
Philopatris, preserved with the works of his illustrious namesake, but there is no evidence of this.
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To Lucian the sophist.
Not only do I write to you, but I demand payment in kind. And if my constant writing is a form of abuse, then I beg you to abuse me in return and make me suffer in exactly the same way.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.