Letter 455
To Libanius [a relative or namesake]. (355/356)
You did well both in keeping silent when silence was better and in speaking when speaking was better -- bringing the fine principles of Pythagoras [who required years of silence from his students] back into daily life.
I admired you before and I love you now. If I ever see you, I will count the sight among my greatest blessings.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
Related Letters
All who are attached to the rose, as might be expected in the case of lovers of the beautiful, are not displeased even at the thorns from out of which the flower blows. I have even heard it said about roses by some one, perhaps in jest, or, it may be, even in earnest, that nature has furnished the bloom with those delicate thorns, like stings of...
Your annoyance is over. Let this be the beginning of my letter. Go on mocking and abusing me and mine, whether laughing or in earnest.