To Andronicus, a general. (360)
What have you done? You who committed only one fault -- but the one fault you should never have committed, even if you were unjust in everything else. Berinus has been overlooked and scorned -- Berinus, the dearest of all my friends, and I would say the dearest of yours too, if you really care about me.
And yet you promised to do everything. You told him to take heart. When he asked repeatedly, you called the very request an insult -- saying that your kindness to him would be the prelude to your work in Phoenicia.
But you have been generous to everyone else -- and I do not blame you for that, since power should be used for doing good. Yet toward my old classmate, a man whose once-great and honestly earned wealth refused to stay with him (for wealth is like that, or rather the mistress of wealth wanders like a bird from tree to tree) -- toward this man, I would rather not say that Andronicus was not zealous, but neither can I say that he was. This much at least I can say: he still intends to be.
For time has not carried the matter away. If you are willing, you can still grant the favor, even if belatedly. And I think it is better to grant a favor late than never to grant it at all.
What have you done? You who committed only one fault -- but the one fault you should never have committed, even if you were unjust in everything else. Berinus has been overlooked and scorned -- Berinus, the dearest of all my friends, and I would say the dearest of yours too, if you really care about me.
And yet you promised to do everything. You told him to take heart. When he asked repeatedly, you called the very request an insult -- saying that your kindness to him would be the prelude to your work in Phoenicia.
But you have been generous to everyone else -- and I do not blame you for that, since power should be used for doing good. Yet toward my old classmate, a man whose once-great and honestly earned wealth refused to stay with him (for wealth is like that, or rather the mistress of wealth wanders like a bird from tree to tree) -- toward this man, I would rather not say that Andronicus was not zealous, but neither can I say that he was. This much at least I can say: he still intends to be.
For time has not carried the matter away. If you are willing, you can still grant the favor, even if belatedly. And I think it is better to grant a favor late than never to grant it at all.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.