Letter 518
To Olympius.
You are a harbor for Syrians, even those who lack education. And you are a harbor again for the educated, even if they happen not to be Syrians. You also, I am sure, welcome my friends, whether they come from elsewhere or whether they have no knowledge of literature.
I find all these qualities combined in the man carrying this letter: Heliodorus is a fellow citizen of ours, an old companion, and a skilled speaker. Treat him in your characteristic fashion.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
Related Letters
As all the fruits of the season come to us in their proper time, flowers in spring, grain in summer, and apples in autumn, so the fruit for winter is talk. About this page Source. Translated by Blomfield Jackson.
What do you mean, my dear Sir, by evicting from our retreat my dear friend and nurse of philosophy, Poverty? Were she but gifted with speech, I take it you would have to appear as defendant in an action for unlawful ejectment. She might plead I chose to live with this man Basil, an admirer of Zeno, who, when he had lost everything in a shipwrec...