Letter 70

To Diogenes. Your son Diogenes, whom I saw after you left, told me you were very angry with him for something that would naturally vex any father. He begged me to act as mediator. If his offense is mild and tolerable, yield to nature — remember that you are a father, and turn your heart back to your child. But if it is too serious for immediate forgiveness, then it is for you, not me, to decide whether you should bear even that with generosity and overcome his waywardness with wiser thoughts, or whether to leave the offender's reformation to a longer period of discipline.

To Diogenes 1 Your son Diogenes, whom I saw after you went away, told me that you had been much irritated with him for some reason that would naturally make a father feel vexed with his child, and he implored me to act as mediator in a reconciliation between him and yourself. Now, if he has committed some error of a mild and not intolerable kind, do you yield to nature, recognise that you are a father, and again turn your thoughts to your child. But if his offence is too serious to admit of immediate forgiveness, it is right for you yourself rather than for me to decide whether you ought to bear even that with a generous spirit and overcome your son's purpose by wiser thoughts, or to entrust the offender's probation to a longer period of discipline. 1 Diogenes is otherwise unknown. Schwarz places this letter between January and June 362, when Julian was at Constantinople. The tone seems to imply that he was already Emperor, but the note is purely conventional, a "type" of the letter of intervention.