To Acacius Presbyter. (357)
Even before your letter arrived, I knew both that you had fallen into terrible illness and that you had recovered from it. A man came from your city -- not well known to me -- and said that you had been so gravely ill that you had even thought of writing your will. When I heard this, I was beside myself with grief. "But there was no need for the will," he added, "because the crisis has passed."
At that, I came back to myself and began telling my friends what you had suffered and escaped, weaving together the alarming reports with the better news. When I then received your letter and could see clearly the nature of the illness in proper order -- for Hippocrates as well as Plato equipped you to describe it, since you are a student of both -- I grieved over your sufferings, and I was distressed for a city that nurtures so many quacks.
I forgave you for the wine's holding sway while you were ill, for I myself am a slave to wine when sick. But when I heard about the torrents of sweat, I breathed again. I am grateful to Asclepius [god of healing] for stopping the illness, and to you for telling me about it. For it is a common festival of all the Greeks that the foremost of the Greeks is well. What you call me, you yourself actually are.
When you spend time with my writings, you make me happy -- if indeed I am worth that much. And I will not say what most people say: that you love the father of the speeches but do not praise the offspring. You would never call a skilled friend a skilled orator if he were not actually skilled, nor would you consider a man a poor orator simply because he was not your friend. You strip everything down to the speeches themselves and insist on seeing them for what they are, not whose they are. So I already think highly of myself, trusting in your judgment that I am indeed someone worth something.
Even before your letter arrived, I knew both that you had fallen into terrible illness and that you had recovered from it. A man came from your city -- not well known to me -- and said that you had been so gravely ill that you had even thought of writing your will. When I heard this, I was beside myself with grief. "But there was no need for the will," he added, "because the crisis has passed."
At that, I came back to myself and began telling my friends what you had suffered and escaped, weaving together the alarming reports with the better news. When I then received your letter and could see clearly the nature of the illness in proper order -- for Hippocrates as well as Plato equipped you to describe it, since you are a student of both -- I grieved over your sufferings, and I was distressed for a city that nurtures so many quacks.
I forgave you for the wine's holding sway while you were ill, for I myself am a slave to wine when sick. But when I heard about the torrents of sweat, I breathed again. I am grateful to Asclepius [god of healing] for stopping the illness, and to you for telling me about it. For it is a common festival of all the Greeks that the foremost of the Greeks is well. What you call me, you yourself actually are.
When you spend time with my writings, you make me happy -- if indeed I am worth that much. And I will not say what most people say: that you love the father of the speeches but do not praise the offspring. You would never call a skilled friend a skilled orator if he were not actually skilled, nor would you consider a man a poor orator simply because he was not your friend. You strip everything down to the speeches themselves and insist on seeing them for what they are, not whose they are. So I already think highly of myself, trusting in your judgment that I am indeed someone worth something.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.