Letter 596: Your daughter's son is everything a grandfather could wish for: a lover of learning, no lover of physical pleasures,...
To Hieracius. (357)
Your daughter's son is everything a grandfather could wish for: a lover of learning, no lover of physical pleasures, free from insolence, a friend of moderation, pleasing to me, devoted to his companions.
Knowing this about him, I could not keep silent. For I know how to censure young men who stray beyond decorum, and I know how to praise those who remain in good order.
Finding this Diophantus to be one of those who do what they should, I thought it unjust not to delight his grandfather's ears 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AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
- 2026-03-20v2.1.0-import
Initial corpus import from AI-assisted translation from original text.
Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://github.com/OpenGreekAndLatin/First1KGreek/blob/master/volume_xml/libanius_10.xml
Related Letters
"To one the god gave one thing, but denied another," someone said of a man who prayed for two things.
Since we ourselves have no perception of the terrible things we do, because of laziness and self-love — and since we...
Such has Diophantus been since boyhood: self-controlled, fair-minded, industrious, pleasing to the best men.
Your poem reached me and I have read it with the pleasure that work of genuine quality always gives, alongside the...
We often ill advisedly hate our superiors and love our inferiors. So I, for my part, hold my tongue, and keep silence about the disgrace of the insults offered me. I wait for the Judge above, Who knows how to punish all wickedness in the end, even though a man pour out gold like sand; let him trample on the right, he does but hurt his own soul.