Letter 136: Now you have truly repaid me -- not in gold and silver, the kind of payment most people bring and most people enjoy,...
To Albanius (359/60)
Now you have truly repaid me my wages — not gold and silver, those things that the many bring and that delight the many, but that for whose sake I even renounced my patrimony. And that is glory.
This you have given me by showing that I am not merely a wrestler myself, but also a good trainer. For you know how those who dare not fault your strength try instead to sting on that other point — but you reduced them to silence with your own voice.
So let the course be run often. Choose whatever path in life you think advantageous, but believe that eloquence belongs to you everywhere. No way of life is dishonored by rhetoric. And consider that your father too asks this of you — that he not be deprived of this pleasure, even now that he is beneath the earth.
Our governor, for his part, was raised in the house of Hermes and is reminded of his own studies by those who plead before him, and he confesses that this is the one pleasure to which he yields. It would be the mark of a sensible man, then, to make use of the present opportunity.
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