Letter 1009: A literary congratulations that turns speeches into beautiful children.
Your speeches came to us, and they were read where they deserved to be read. They won praise, applause, and people leaping to their feet. Some of those who did this called you, their maker, blessed; others called me blessed as the father of the speechwriter; many called us both blessed. Those people too were praised by those present for voting such honors. So put your right hand into letters and make many children, since you are going to make fine ones. And the laws, if they are just, will pardon us for loving the beauty of speeches and for assigning some of that beauty to themselves and some to those speeches, rather than taking the whole for themselves.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek below for scholarly use.
Latin / Greek Original
Παρϑενοπαίῳ. (391)
᾿ ΣΝ τ : ΦΩΝΕ
1. Καὶ ἦλθον ἡμῖν οἵ λόγοι σου καὶ ἐν οἷς ἦν ἄξιον
30 ἀνεγνώσϑησαν καὶ ἔτυχον καὶ ἐπαίνου καὶ κρότου καὶ πηδη-
μάτων. τῶν δὲ τοῦτο ποιούντων οἵ μὲν σὲ μακάριον ἐκάλουν
τὸν δημιουργόν, οἵ δὲ τὸν τοῦ λογογράφου πατέρα ἐμέ, πολλοὶ
δὲ ἀμφοτέρους. οἷς καὶ αὐτοῖς ἔπαινος ἦν παυὰ τῶν παρόν-
τῶν τοιαῦτα Ψηφιξομένοις. Ὡ. ἔγχε δὴ τὴν δεξιὰν ἐν γράμμασι
χαὶ παῖδας ποίει πολλοὺς μέλλων ποιήσειν καλούς. οἱ νόμοι
δέ, εἴπερ εἰσὶ δίκαιοι, ---- δίκαιοι δ᾽ ἂν εἶεν εἶναι δίκαιοι καὶ
τοῖς ἄλλοις βουλόμενοι --- ἕξουσιν ἡμῖν συγγνώμην τοῦ τῶν
λόγων ἐρῶσι κάλλους καὶ τὸ μὲν αὑτοῖς, τὸ δὲ ἐκείνοις νε-
μοῦσιν, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ τὸ πᾶν ἑαυτοῖς.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern libanius foerster vol11 batch10 t260 reviewed v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/download/foerster-libanii-opera/Foerster%20%281922%29%2C%20Libanii%20opera%2011_djvu.xml
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