Letter 579: Your sons have good natures and even better eagerness.
To Eusebius. (357)
Your sons are of a good nature and of an even better eagerness. And already they have produced some specimen of young men who have ears. But what this is, for me to state it precisely is not seemly, while for them not to do this would be shameful. And by forbearing to entreat us on their behalf, you did the deed of one who honors them, bearing witness by your silence that they possess everything that is fitting.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Εὐσεβίῳ. (357)
Οἱ παῖδές σου φύσεως τε ἀγαθῆς καὶ προθυμίας ἀμεί-
νονος. ἤδη δέ τι καὶ δεῖγμα ἐξήνεγκαν νέων ἐχόντων ὦτα.
ὅτι δὲ τοῦτ’ ἔστιν, ἐμοὶ μὲν ἀκριβῶς εἰπεῖν οὐ καλόν, ἐκείνοις
δὲ μὴ τοῦτο ποιεῖν αἰσχρόν.
παρεὶς δὲ τὸ παρακαλεῖν ἡμᾶς
ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν τιμῶντος ἔργον ἐποίησας τῇ σιγῇ μαρτυρήσας
ὡς ἅπαν τὸ προσῆκον ἔχουσιν.
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
Related Letters
If Julian were not my friend, I would envy him his fortune — that he had your company here with us before, and now...
Who could blame a man for fleeing fire?
That Alexander was appointed to the government at first, I confess, gave me some concern, as the principal persons...
(Basil the Great died Jan. 1, a.d. 379.
(About the middle of a.d. 382 Theodosius, on the recommendation of S. Damasus, summoned a new Synod of Eastern Bishops to meet at Constantinople, to try and heal the schism which had been embittered by the election of Flavian at Antioch.