Letter 721: As far as oratory goes, you have sent your companion from one Eleusis to another -- for these are the same...
To Pancratius. (362)
For the sake of eloquence you have sent the companion from Eleusis to Eleusis [that is, from one place of the same teaching to another] -- for they are, I think, the same mysteries -- and he will encounter no novel discourses; rather, it was a certain reputation concerning the Syrians, not the power of any sophist, that occasioned his journey abroad. For somehow association with that nation seems able to sharpen souls and to make them fit for handling affairs.
If, then, the young man returns the keener for it, blame the city rather than the one who, in a foreign land, has imparted to him those things which he used to enjoy at home.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Παγκρατίῳ. (362)
Ἕνεκα μὲν λόγων ἐξ Ἐλευσῖνος εἰς Ἐλευσῖνα πέπομφας
τὸν ἔταφον, ταὐτὰ γὰρ οἴμαι μυστήρια, καὶ λόγοις οὐ καινοῖς
ἐντεύξεται, τὴν δ’ ἀποδημίαν αὐτῷ πεποίηκε δόξα τις περὶ
Σύρων, οὐ σοφιστοῦ δύναμις. δοκεῖ γάρ πως ἡ πρὸς τὸ ἔθνος
ὁμιλία δύνασθαι ψυχὰς ἀκονᾶν καὶ ποιεῖν ἐπιτηδείους χρῆ-
σθαι πράγμασιν.
ἢν οὖν ὀξύτερος ὁ νέος ἐπανέλθῃ, τὴν
πόλιν αἰτιάσασθε μᾶλλον ἢ τὸν ὧν ἀπέλαυεν οἴκοι τούτων
ἐν ξένῃ μεταδόντα.
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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