Letter 596: Your daughter's son is everything a grandfather could wish for: a lover of learning, no lover of physical pleasures,...
To Hierax. (357)
Your daughter's son is such a boy as his grandfather would pray for: a lover of learning, in no way a lover of bodies, far removed from insolence, a friend to fair-mindedness, pleasing to me, devoted to his companions.
Knowing these things about him, I could not keep silent. For I know how to accuse young men who carry themselves beyond all order, and I know how to praise those who remain within proper bounds.
So, having found this Diophantus to be one of those who do what they ought, I thought it would be wrong not to gladden the grandfather's ear as well.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Ἱερακίῳ. (357)
Ὁ τῆς παιδός σου παῖς τοιοῦτός ἐστιν, οἷον εὔξαιτο ἂν
ὁ πάππος, λόγων ἐραστής, σωμάτων οὔτι ἐραστής, θράσους
ἀφεστηκώς, ἐπιεικείᾳ φίλος, ἀρέσκων ἐμοί, τοὺς ἑταίρους
ἐξημμένος.
ταῦτα αὐτῷ συνειδὼς σιγᾶν οὐκ εἶχον. ἐγὼ
γὰρ οἶδα μὲν κατηγορῆσαι νέων ἔξω κόσμου φερομένων, οἴδα
δὲ ἐπαινέσαι μένοντας έν τῷ τεταγμένῳ.
τὸν οὖν Διόφαν-
τον τοῦτον ἕνα τῶν ἃ χρὴ ποιούντων εὑρὼν ἡγησάμην ἄδι-
κον μὴ καὶ τῷ πάππῳ τὴν ἀκοὴν εὐφρᾶναι.
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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