To Obodianus, friend and official. (362)
Help for your shoulder has reached you from our doctors, through both words and medicines -- you yourself sent for both. As for whether it is better to return home or to press on, the circumstances will advise you; no words of mine are needed.
If the emperor provides you a carriage and summons you, you must obviously hurry there, if you are able to move at all. But if no carriage is given, you must look toward home.
In any case, never stop healing your soul with the song of Demosthenes, whether you go to Thrace or return -- the one that says we must bear nobly whatever comes from the gods.
Help for your shoulder has reached you from our doctors, through both words and medicines -- you yourself sent for both. As for whether it is better to return home or to press on, the circumstances will advise you; no words of mine are needed.
If the emperor provides you a carriage and summons you, you must obviously hurry there, if you are able to move at all. But if no carriage is given, you must look toward home.
In any case, never stop healing your soul with the song of Demosthenes, whether you go to Thrace or return -- the one that says we must bear nobly whatever comes from the gods.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.