Letter 517: I write to you often, and I rather wish you would not write back.
To Anatolius. (356)
Though I write to you often, I would wish that you not write to me. For this would give me grounds to accuse you, which means everything to me: to be able to pursue you. Yet I would not, after all, wish you to fail to do the things that I bid you do; rather, do them by all means. What, then, do I bid? as Demosthenes asks. The man from whom you receive this letter, to him do whatever good you can. For you will prove a benefactor to a friend of ours, and you will gain a friend who knows how to give praise. And this, surely, matters more to you than making gains for others.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Ἀνατολίῳ. (356)
Ἐγὼ σοὶ πολλάκις ἐπιστέλλων βουλοίμην ἂν σὲ μὴ γρά-
φειν ἐμοί. τοῦτο γάρ μοι δώσει σοῦ κατηγορεῖν, ὃ περὶ παν-
τὸς ἐμοί, τὸ σὲ διώκειν ἔχειν. οὐ μὴν ἔτ᾿ ἂν βουλοίμην σε μὴ
ποιεῖν ἃ ἂν κελεύω σε ποιεῖν, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάνυ ποιεῖ
τί
οὖν κελεύω; φησὶ Δημοσθένης. παρ’ οἱ, τὰ γράμματα δέχῃ,
τοῦτον ποιεῖν ὅ τι ἔχεις ἀγαθόν. καὶ γὰρ εἰς ἡμέτερον φίλον
εὐεργέτης ἴσῃ καὶ κτήσῃ φίλον ἐπαινεῖν εἰδότα. τοῦτο δὲ σοὶ
δήπου μέλει ἢ τὸ κερδαίνειν ἑτέροις.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern libanius retranslated v1.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://github.com/OpenGreekAndLatin/First1KGreek/blob/master/volume_xml/libanius_10.xml
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