Letter 202: I received your letter with the same pleasure I always feel when something of yours arrives.

To the same man. (360) We love Zenas both as an accomplished orator and as a good man, and we owe him certain thanks besides in return for the labors which this man's brother endured on our behalf, when Limenius thought it necessary to put me to death, doing a favor for another. But that man stood by me against a governor's wrath. It would have been right, then, that the worthy Paeonius should be alive and reap his recompense; but since he has departed, this man becomes the heir of what was his, a man whom some divinity, I do not know in return for what, carried off and cast into a foul affair, whence penalties have come upon him that make the loss seem but small, like the hydra [for whenever one head is cut off, two grow in its place]. For there is always one informer after another. And he paid out as much as would have exhausted even the wealth of Midas. Comfort, then, a man who has been ill-used, as one would comfort a city worn down by a long siege. For it is neither pious for me to fail to help this man, nor is it in keeping with your purpose to do for us anything that is to our mind.

τῷ αὐτῷ. (360) Ζηνᾶν καὶ ὡς ῥήτορα δεξιὸν καὶ ὡς ἄνδρα ἀγαθὸν φι- λοῦμεν, ὀφείλομεν δέ τινας αὐτῷ καὶ χάριτας ἀντὶ τῶν πό- νων, οὓς ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ὑπέμεινεν ἀδελφὸς ὁ τοῦδε, ὅτε με Λι- μένιος ἀποκτεῖναι δεῖν ᾤετο φέρων ἑτέρῳ χάριν. ὁ δὲ ἔστη μετ’ ἐμοῦ πρὸς ἄρχοντος ὀργήν. ἔδει μὲν οὖν ζῆν τὸν χρὴ. στὸν Παιόνιον καὶ κομίζεσθαι τὰς ἀμοιβάς· ἐπεὶ δὲ ἀπῆλθεν, οὗτος τῶν ἐκείνου γίγνεται κληρονόμος, ὃν δαίμων τις, οὐκ οἶδα ἀνθ’ ὅτου, φέρων ἐνέβαλεν εἰς πρᾶγμα μιαρόν, ὅθεν αὐ- τῷ ζημίαι μικρὸν ἀποφαίνουσαι τὴν ὕδραν. ἀεὶ γάρ τις ἐπὶ συκοφάντῃ συκοφάντης. ὁ δὲ ἀπέτισεν ὁπόσα ἂν καὶ τὸν Μί- δοῦ πλοῦτον ἐξήλεγξε. παραμύθησαι δὴ κεκακωμένον ἄνδρα καθάπερ πόλιν μακρᾷ πολιορκίᾳ πεπονηκυῖαν. οὔτε γὰρ ἐμοὶ μὴ τούτῳ βοηθεῖν εὐσεβὲς σοί τε ἡμῖν τι ποιεῖν τῶν κατὰ νοῦν ἐν μελέτῃ.