Letter 129: "A friend should stand by a man," as the saying goes.

LibaniusEustolius|c. 326 AD|Libanius|AI-assisted
barbarian invasioneducation booksfriendshipimperial politics

To Eustolios. (359/60)

A friend should be at hand for a man, as the saying goes. And you are to us both a friend and the most reliable of friends, so that you will leave nothing of your zeal undone in matters wherein you may set any of our affairs in better order.

Receive Mokimos, then, kindly on our behalf, and turn the chaff into gold for us: if the matter is very easy, for this very reason, because it is easy; but if it is laborious, because you know how to take pains as well.

AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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

Εὐστολίῳ. (359/60)

Φίλος ἀνδρὶ παρείη, φασί. σὺ δ' ἡμῖν καὶ φίλος καὶ
σαφέστατος τῶν φίλων, ὥστ’ οὐδὲν παρήσεις προθυμίας ἐν
οἷς τι θήσῃ τῶν ἡμετέρων βέλτιον.

δέξαι δὴ τὸν Μόκιμον
ἡμῖν εὐμενῶς καὶ ποίησον ἡμῖν τὰ ἄχυρα χρυσίον, εἰ μὲν τὸ 10
πρᾶγμα ῥᾷστον, δι’ αὐτὸ τοῦτο, ὅτι ῥᾷστον, εἰ δὲ ἐργῶδες,
ὅτι καὶ πονεῖν οἶσθα.

Revision history

  1. 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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