From: Libanius, rhetorician in Antioch
To: Aristaenetus
Date: ~357 AD
Context: A warm letter about a trusted intermediary, blending praise with a gentle reproach for a friend's silence.
You ask whether I still remember you. What a question -- as if I could forget. But your silence has been remarkable, and I confess I've had to invent charitable explanations for it.
Let me tell you what I can about Januarius, who served with real distinction in a difficult post. He alone managed to win praise from everyone -- those who got quick results and those who had to wait alike -- by blending so much charm into his delays that no one could resent him. In departing, he's genuinely grieved the better sort of people, because while he was here he gave no one cause for grief.
When I made requests of him, he was so far from refusing that if I ever paused in asking, he called the omission an insult and reproached me for it. He treated your successes as his own and mine alike. Any good news he learned, he came running to tell me, his face announcing his delight before his words did. I would say more, but you know the man.
**To Priscian** (353)
Dionysius did not trample upon his oath — he has returned to you with the letter, just as he swore he would do. But when you call our city "blessed" — a city in which you were afraid to live — you are having your little joke. For if you truly believed it to be such, what possessed you to refuse to share in its blessedness when you had the chance?
As for our dangers: if you are unaware of them, you do me wrong, for your ignorance can only come from neglect — and this when you live so close by. But if you know full well and yet congratulate me amid such perils, then you are the most reckless of men.
In regarding Dinius's affairs as your own, you show good sense. I myself am certainly not among those who treat Dinius's concerns as someone else's business. You will see the earnestness of my support in the letter I shall send on the old man's behalf.
Context:A warm letter about a trusted intermediary, blending praise with a gentle reproach for a friend's silence.
You ask whether I still remember you. What a question -- as if I could forget. But your silence has been remarkable, and I confess I've had to invent charitable explanations for it.
Let me tell you what I can about Januarius, who served with real distinction in a difficult post. He alone managed to win praise from everyone -- those who got quick results and those who had to wait alike -- by blending so much charm into his delays that no one could resent him. In departing, he's genuinely grieved the better sort of people, because while he was here he gave no one cause for grief.
When I made requests of him, he was so far from refusing that if I ever paused in asking, he called the omission an insult and reproached me for it. He treated your successes as his own and mine alike. Any good news he learned, he came running to tell me, his face announcing his delight before his words did. I would say more, but you know the man.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.