Roman Letters

Letter 894: Libanius explains a delay in writing and updates Hesychius on his sons' studies.

Libanius→Hesychius, correspondent of Libanius|c. 388 AD|Libanius|From Antioch|AI-assisted
educationdelaygriefstudents
The reference to Hermes [god of eloquence] highlights Libanius's identification of his school with traditional Hellenic religion.
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Don't blame me; blame the times. They've brought so much trouble, grief, and the tears that follow. In such a state, it isn't easy to write frequently to so many friends. As for your sons, they spent the first of the last two months with both me and their old teachers; they spent the second focusing only on themselves, as that seemed most practical. With the help of Hermes and the other gods, we will resume our sessions on the fourth of this month.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

1. Μὴ ἡμῖν, τῷ καιρῷ δὲ ἐγκάλει πολλά τε ἐνεγκόντι πράγματα καὶ λύπην τὴν ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν καὶ δάκρυα τὰ ἀπ᾽ ἐκείνης. εἶναι δὲ ἐν τοιούτοις καὶ ἐπιστέλλειν τοσούτοις φίλοις πολλάκις οὐ ῥᾲδιον. 2. παῖδες δὲ οἱ σοὶ δυοῖν μηνοῖν τὸν μὲν ἀνηλώκασι περὶ ἄμφω, τούς τε παλαιούς καὶ ἐμέ, τὸν δεύτερον δὲ περὶ ἐκείνους μόνους τοῦ συμφέροντος ταύτην ἄγοντος. 3. Ἑρμοῦ δὲ διδόντος καὶ τῶν ἄλλων θεῶν ἁψόμεθα συνουσιῶν ἐν τούτῳ δὴ τῷ μηνὶ τῆς τετράδος τὰ πρῶτα δεχομένης.

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Revision history

  1. 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import

    Initial corpus import from modern libanius foerster vol11 batch3 gemini flash v1.

    Fields: letter text, metadata, source links. Source: https://archive.org/download/foerster-libanii-opera/Foerster%20%281922%29%2C%20Libanii%20opera%2011_djvu.xml

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