Letter 14: I received your earlier letter with more pleasure than you can imagine.

LibaniusLeontius|c. 315 AD|Libanius
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**To Calliopius** (388)

Which of the gods or spirits has made Tatianus — admired everywhere — gracious toward us? You tell me, Calliopius, for you know his affairs well. But if you will not say, I must resort to divination.

The god himself I could not discover — just as Homer knew that Athena came from Hera to Achilles to restrain his anger — but the man through whom the gods accomplished this, him I have found out most excellently.

He is a fellow citizen of mine, a leading man of the city, one who drank from the same bowl as I in the gardens of the Muses. First he pleaded cases in court, and now he writes letters — both in the service of emperors, the father and the son — having perhaps done me a great wrong, or perhaps not even a small one. He takes no small pride in the fact that your reputation was made brilliant by that man's cleverness, and — what is still more formidable — with Themistius lending his support. His rhetorical skill we saw in the charges he brought; his humanity, in what he promised to do on our behalf.

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