Letter 253: I showed my affection not by accepting the gifts so much as by the pain I felt earlier over what pained me.
To Auxentius. (361)
It was not so much by accepting your gifts of hospitality that I showed my affection as by being first grieved at the things over which I was grieved. For it belonged, I think, to one who loves and is jealous not to bear that any of your affairs should be managed by another while I am alive.
From this I was bitten to the heart, while you perhaps were preening yourself, considering yourself another Phaon [the ferryman beloved of Aphrodite] [...]
AI-assisted translation - This translation was produced with AI assistance and has not been peer-reviewed.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
Αὐξεντίῳ. (361)
Οὐ τῷ δέξασθαι τὰ ξένια μᾶλλον ἔδειξα τὸ φιλεῖν ἢ τῷ
λυπηθῆναι πρότερον οἷς ἐλυπήθην. ἦν γὰρ ἐρῶντος, οἶμαι,
καὶ ζηλοτυποῦντος τό τι τῶν σῶν ἐμοῦ ζῶντος ὑφ’ ἑτέρου
πράττεσθαι μὴ φέρειν.
ἐντεῦθεν ἐγὼ μὲν ἐδήχθην τὴν καρ-
δίαν, σὺ δὲ ἴσως ἐκαλλωπίζου Φάων τις ἕτερος ἡγούμενος
Revision history
- 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
Related Letters
To Auxentius [a childhood friend with whom Synesius was ending a quarrel].
To Auxentius [a childhood friend with whom Synesius was trying to mend a quarrel].