Letter 996: A short literary compliment framed as a playful contest between father and son.
The speech you sent came into a father's hands, and somehow your father's speech came into the same hands. We invited to this feast the people who ought to be there, and did not invite those better left away. When the speeches were read, the judges decided that Achilles' words had been beaten by Peleus'. Happy Peleus, to lose in such a contest, and happier than if he had won. So much for the gifts you have sent to Tatianus. Maxentius seems to have both the power of speech and the good fortune of belonging to your house, which can easily win him many allies because it has many friends.
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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. Εἰς πατρὸς χεῖρας ἦλθεν ὁ λόγος ὃν ἔπεμψας, ἧκε δέ πως καὶ ὁ τοῦ σοῦ πατρὸς εἰς τὰς αὐτὰς χεῖρας. καὶ ἐκαλοῦμεν μὲν ἐπὶ τήνδε τὴν θοίνην οὓς ἐχρῆν, οὐκ ἐκαλοῦμεν δὲ οὓς ἀπεῖναι βέλτιον. 2. ἀναγνωσθέντων τοίνυν τῶν λόγων ἔγνωσαν οἱ δικασταὶ τῶν τοῦ Ἀχιλλέως ἡττῆσθαι τὰ τοῦ Πηλέως. εὐδαίμων γε ὁ Πηλεὺς οὑτοσὶ τῆς ἥττης καὶ μᾶλλόν γε ἢ εἰ νενικήκει. 3. καὶ ταυτὶ μὲν περὶ τῶν δώρων ἃ πεπόμφατε Τατιανῷ· Μαξέντιος δὲ μετὰ τοῦ δύνασθαι λέγειν καὶ τύχην ἔχειν φαίνεται τὴν ὑμετέραν οἰκίαν, ἣ ῥᾳδίως ἂν αὐτῷ πολλοὺς ποιήσαι συμμάχους πολλοὺς ἔχουσα φίλους.
Revision history
- 2026-05-27v2.2.34-import
Initial corpus import from modern libanius foerster vol11 batch9 t259 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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