Letter 275
To Leontius. (358)
What happened was just as you predicted in your letter. I was immediately glad to see Cleopatrus because of the letter of introduction, but as I got to know the young man, the letter was no longer the main thing -- it was his own qualities that drew me in more. He struck me as a good judge of oratory, and the way he talked made clear the rhetorical skill in his writing.
Moreover, he gratified me by his love for you, and by delighting both in what he reported you said about me and in what he heard me say about you.
The grace in his face, his voice, his bearing -- in short, there was nothing about him that was not charming. Together with nature, you have produced such a kinsman by adding your own contributions to what nature gave. May you raise children equally fine for the family.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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I too do not write often to you, but not more seldom than you do to me, though many have travelled hitherward from your part of the world. If you had sent a letter by every one of them, one after the other, there would have been nothing to prevent my seeming to be actually in your company, and enjoying it as though we had been together, so unint...