Letter 731
To Anatolius, friend. (362)
May your sacrifices go well, and may you find favor with the gods -- with the leader of the Muses and with the god who was allotted the mountain. For the emperor, they say, intends to climb up there as well, regarding the difficult road as easy if it leads to an altar.
I ought to have shared the journey, the prayers, the sacrifices, and the sight of the emperor's beard, with which he adorns the purple. But Fortune decided otherwise and struck me a blow worse than any before.
I would have described it in detail, had you not already possessed a man who can tell it better than any letter -- the good Olympius. He was present with me, wept alongside me, reached out his hand, and knows everything.
This is the man I once praised to you, and you immediately agreed to enroll him among your friends and told me to bring him forward. Even the grapevine knows this -- the one under which we walked and talked, enjoying from it as much shade as one gets from a roof.
Olympius kept pressing me, shouting that I should introduce him to you. But I was hemmed in by countless troubles. Since he cannot bear the loss any longer, hearing that even a brief meeting with you sends a man away wiser --
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.
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Source. Translated by James Barmby. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol.
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