To Alexander. (358)
It was not, then, Bithynia's fate for her misfortune to last forever. That is why a healer has come -- one who knows how to do his work. You could not raise a dead man, as they do in legends, but you could restore ruined cities back to the form of cities. And that is what you are now doing. They say the cities have come back to life. May they recover their full former beauty, O gods!
My joy is double: that you are the one doing the good, and that the Bithynians are the ones benefiting. For you are my child [a former student], and that province is a second homeland to me. I would recount for you the welcome I received there and the happiness of those times, but you know enough to tell others yourself.
The pleasure I would have felt if you were helping my native land -- that is what I feel now, since you are doing everything to make this province, which is no less dear to me, appear as it once was.
And I think it is also fine of you to help the young man...
It was not, then, Bithynia's fate for her misfortune to last forever. That is why a healer has come -- one who knows how to do his work. You could not raise a dead man, as they do in legends, but you could restore ruined cities back to the form of cities. And that is what you are now doing. They say the cities have come back to life. May they recover their full former beauty, O gods!
My joy is double: that you are the one doing the good, and that the Bithynians are the ones benefiting. For you are my child [a former student], and that province is a second homeland to me. I would recount for you the welcome I received there and the happiness of those times, but you know enough to tell others yourself.
The pleasure I would have felt if you were helping my native land -- that is what I feel now, since you are doing everything to make this province, which is no less dear to me, appear as it once was.
And I think it is also fine of you to help the young man...
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.