Letter 219
To Spectatus. (360?)
The news from your quarter confirms what we have long suspected: that education alone is no longer sufficient protection against the vicissitudes of public life. Time was when a man of letters could count on a certain respect, a certain immunity from the rougher treatment reserved for the uneducated. That time, if it ever truly existed outside our nostalgic imaginations, is passing.
And yet I would not have our young men study less. On the contrary, they should study more -- not because learning guarantees safety, but because it guarantees something better: the ability to understand what is happening to them and to face it with dignity. The uneducated man suffers and does not know why. The educated man suffers and finds in his suffering the material for wisdom, and sometimes even for eloquence.
This may sound like cold comfort, and perhaps it is. But it is the only comfort a teacher can honestly offer in times like these.
Your friend's case I have taken up with those who can help. I cannot promise results, but I can promise effort, which is all any honest man can promise about anything.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.