Letter 493: You are not reminding people who had forgotten your hospitality — we have even told others what a host you were to us.

To Atactius. (356) You remind us, who have not forgotten your hospitality, but who have even told others what sort of man you proved to be toward us. And these present letters are no worse than those gifts of hospitality. And yet to long for letters from another is equal, in point of honor, to writing oneself. So that you gladden us with the three greatest things: both with those benefits whereby we lodged in your house, and with the letters you send, and because you reckon it a great thing to receive a letter from us. But I, for my part, did not hold back after the manner of bad flute-players; rather it was those who were to deliver them, so that they might collect their pay, who failed to do their work. And they were the ones in the wrong, yet I am the one under blame—I who, even had I been exceedingly idle, would not, at least where a letter is concerned—a thing so trifling—have suffered this to happen, and that too toward a friend. But the charge, I think, belongs to those men; and as for you, we shall fill your house with letters, if it is letters you desire.

Ἀτακτίῳ. (356) Οὐκ ἐπιλελησμένους τῆς ξενίας ἀναμιμνήσκεις, ἀλλὰ καὶ πρὸς ἄλλους εἰπόντας, ὅστις εἰς ἡμᾶς γένοιο. τῶν ξενίων δὲ ἐκείνων οὐ χείρω ταυτὶ τὰ γράμματα. καίτοι γε γραμμά- των ἑτέρων ἐπιθυμεῖν ἴσον εἰς τιμὴν τῷ γράφειν αὐτόν. ὥστε τοῖς μεγίστοις εὐφραίνεις τρισίν, οἷς τε κατελύομεν παρὰ σοὶ καὶ οἷς ἐπιστέλλεις καὶ ὅτι τὸ λαβεῖν παρ’ ἡμῶν ἐπιστολὴν ἐν μεγάλῳ ποιῇ. ἐγὼ δὲ οὐ κατὰ τοὺς κακοὺς ἐμέλλησα αὐ- λητάς, ἀλλ’ οἱ διδόντες, ὅπως λάβοιεν, οὐκ ἔπραττον. καὶ οἱ μὲν ἠδίκουν, ἐγὼ δὲ ἐν αἰτίαις, ὅς, εἰ καὶ λίαν ἀργῶς εἶχον, οὐκ ἂν εἴς γε ἐπιστολὴν, πρᾶγμα οὕτω κοῦφον, τοῦτο ἔπαθον καὶ ταῦτα πρὸς φίλον. ἀλλ’, οἶμαι, ἐκείνων τὸ ἔγκλημα σοῦ δὲ ἡμεῖς τὸν οἶκον γραμμάτων, εἰ γραμμάτων ἐπιθυμεῖς, ἐμπλήσομεν.