Letter 594: Now that you have what you requested and what you said you would give, send it along and gratify your homeland with...

To Julian. (357) Since you hold the things you requested, which you said you would give, send them and do a favor to your native city, granting things welcome to those who come from your native city. A report has reached us that among you the she-bears [bears for the arena] are marvelously productive, and that they are so numerous that you are even able to send some out. And yet, even were there but one, you would surely have made this single one of your fellow-citizens' bears a gift, finding pardon even from those very men from whom you took it away—or rather praise, not pardon, if you were seen to be honoring your own native city. Consider that day on which the whole city is gathered together for the spectacle, and the bear calls forth a shout, and the spectator asks from whom the beast comes, and hears your name, and says it to his neighbor, and you become a sharer in the praises given to the man who performs the public service.

Ἰουλιανῷ. (357) Ὡν ἐδεήθης ἔχων ἃ δώσειν ἔφης ἀπόστελλε καὶ χαρίζου τῇ πατρίδι τοῖς ἐρχομένοις ἐκ τῆς πατρίδος κεχαρισμένα. λόγος δὲ παρ’ ἡμᾶς ἀφῖκται θαυμαστὰ παρ’ ὑμῖν τὰς ἄρκτους ἐργάζεσθαι καὶ εἶναι τοσαύτας ὥστε καὶ ἐκπέμπειν ἔχειν. καίτοι μίαν οὖσαν πάντως ἂν σύ γε τῶν σῶν πολιτῶν τὴν μίαν ταύτην ἐποίησας συγγνώμην ἔχων καὶ παρ’ αὐτῶν ἐκεί- νων οὓς ἀφῃροῦ, μᾶλλον δὲ ἔπαινον, οὐ συγγνώμην, εἰ τιμῶν ἐφαίνου τὴν σαυτοῦ. λογίζου δὲ τὴν ἡμέραν ἐκείνην, ἐν ᾗ πᾶσα μὲν ἤθροισται πόλις ἐπὶ τὴν θέαν, ἄρκτος δὲ βοὴν ἐκκαλεῖται, ζητεῖ δὲ ὁ θεωρός, παρ’ ὅτου τὸ θηρίον, σὲ δὲ ἀκούει καὶ πρὸς ἕτερον λέγει καὶ γίγνῃ τῷ λειτουργοῦντι τῶν ἐπαίνων κοινωνός.