Letter 934: Libanius tells Priscion that a playful remark was wrongly taken seriously and urges him to circulate the speech.
I expected you to stop a friend who had been misled, not to be misled right along with him, especially when the things I said about love made clear that I was joking with a friend who knew how to laugh. But instead he wept, and you did the same, over a speech that amazed Palestine and then amazed our own city when it was performed in the theater by a clear-voiced boy. There was loud applause after the praise I had given it at home; for I was following your letters, and first did the former thing, then the latter. After passing before my own eyes, the speech reached the ears of many. You should make and send many copies of it, since both of these effects will come about for those people too.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Σὲ δὲ ἠξίουν παύειν φίλον ἠπατημένον, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ συνεξαπατᾶσθαι καὶ ταῦτα τῶν περὶ τοῦ ἔρωτος εἰρημένων δηλούντων ὅτι παίζοντος ταῦτα ἦν πρὸς ἄνδρα φίλον ἐπιστάμενον γελᾶν. νῦν δ᾽ ἐκεῖνός τε ἔκλαε καὶ σὺ ταὐτὸν ἐποίεις μετὰ τοιοῦτον λόγον, ὃς ἐξέπληξε μὲν τὴν Παλαιστίνην, ἐξέπληξε δὲ τὴν ἡμετέραν πόλιν δι᾽ εὐφώνου παιδὸς ἐν τῷ θεάτρῳ φανείς. καὶ ἦν ὁ κρότος πολὺς μετὰ τὸν παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ τὸν οἴκοι· τοῖς γὰρ δὴ σοῖς δήπου πειθόμενος γράμμασι πρότερον μὲν ἐκεῖνο, τοῦτο δὲ ἐποίουν δεύτερον. καὶ μετὰ τοὺς ἐμοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ἧκεν εἰς ὦτα πολλῶν ὁ λόγος. ᾧ πολλοὺς ἀδελφοὺς καὶ ποιεῖν καὶ πέμπειν ὡς ἀμφοτέρων τούτων ἐσομένων καὶ περὶ ἐκείνους.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern libanius foerster vol11 batch5 gemini flash ocr reviewed 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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